THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
RIVERSIDE 


THE    MONARCHY    IN    POLITICS 


THE    MONARCHY 
IN  POLITICS 


BY 

JAMES    ANSON    FARRER 

AUTHOR  OF 
'LITERARY   FORGERIES"    "INVASION   AND  CONSCRIPTION"   ETC. 


NEW    YORK 

DODD    MEAD    &    COMPANY 

1917 


All  rights  reserved 
{Printed  in  Great  Britain) 


CONTENTS 


REIGN    I:    GEORGE    III 

CHAP. 

I.  George  III.  and  Party  Government 
II.  Lord  Bute,  the  Favourite 

III.  George  III.  and  the  Fourth  Duke  of 

IV.  The  Year  of  Lord  Rockingham 
V.  The  King's  Servants 

VI.  Monarchy  or  Republic    . 
VII.  George  III.  and  Lord  North  (I) 
VIII.  George  III.  and  Lord  North  (II) 
IX.  In  the  Coils  of  the  Coalition    . 
X.  George  III.  and  Pitt 
XI.  George  the  Conqueror    . 


. 

i'AGE 
1 

. 

10 

Bedford 

.       19 

• 

24 

• 

29 

• 

36 

• 

42 

47 

. 

53 

• 

61 

79 

REIGN   II:    GEORGE  IV 

I.  Regency  Troubles 
II.  The  Monarch  and  his  Ministers 

III.  The  Nadir  of  Monarchy 

IV.  The  Battle  of  the  Catholics 


91 
100 
112 
120 


REIGN   III:    WILLIAM    IV 


j      I.  The  Battle  of  Reform    . 

00 

-<     II.  William  the  Conquered  . 


133 
151 


o 
o 


VI 


Contents 


REIGN    IV:    QUEEN   VICTORIA 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  Queen  Victoria,  Baron  Stockmar,  and  King  Leopold       165 
II.  Early  Victorian  Politics  .  .  .  .177 

III.  Queen  Victoria's  Foreign  Policy  .  .  .192 

IV.  The  Struggle  for  Foreign  Policy  .  .  .     208 
V.  The  Russian  War  Time    .             .             .             .             .230 

VI.  The  Queen  and  the  Italian  Revolution  .  .  247 

VII.  The  Queen  and  the  Dano-German  War  .  .  269 

VIII.  The  Crown  and  the  Army  ....  284 

IX.  Queen  Victoria  and  Mr.  Gladstone      .  .  .  299 

X.  The  Queen  lives  to  see  Imperialism  Triumphant  .  320 


Conclusions 
Index 


330 
337 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

In  addition  to  the  principal  histories  of  the  period  the  following 
are  among  the  works  chiefly  consulted : 

FOR  THE   REIGN   OF   GEORGE   III 

Albemarle,  Lord,  Memoirs  of  Lord  Rockingham.     2  vols.      1852. 
Bedford,  Correspondence  of  the  Fourth  Duke  of,  by  Lord  John   Russell. 

3  vols.      1842. 
Buckingham,   Duke   of,  Court  and   Cabinets  of  George  III.     4   vols. 

1853. 
Chatham,  Correspondence  of.     4  vols.      1838-40. 
Colchester,  Lord,  Diary  and  Correspondence.     3  vols.      1861. 
The  Creevey  Papers,  1768-1838.     2  vols.      1903. 
The  Croker  Papers.     3  vols.      1884. 
Fitzmaurice,  Lord  Edmond,  Life  of  Lord  Shelburne.     Second  edition, 

2  vols.      1912. 
Grafton,  Duke  of,  Autobiography.     1  vol.     1898. 
The  Greville  Memoirs.     8  vols.      1888. 

Holland,  Lord,  Memoirs  of  the  Whig  Party.     2  vols.      1854. 
Holland,  Lord,  Further  Whig  Memoirs,  1807-21.      1905. 
Lecky,  History  of  the  Eighteenth  Century.     7  vols.      1892. 
Malmesbury,  Lord,  Diaries.     4  vols.      1844. 
North,  Lord,  Correspondence  with  George  III.     3  vols.      1 867. 
Romilly,  Sir  Samuel,  Memoirs.     3  vols.      1 840. 
Rose,  George,  Diaries.     2  vols.     I860. 
Stanhope,  Lord,  Life  of  Pitt.     4  vols.     1861. 
Walpole,  Horace,  Memoirs  of  George  III.     4  vols.      1845. 
Walpole,  Sir  Horace,  Last  Journals. 
Wellington,  Duke  of,  Supplementary  Despatches. 
Wellington,  Duke  of,  Maxims  and  Opinions.      1845. 


viii  Bibliography 


FOR  THE   REIGN   OF   GEORGE   IV 

Bagot,  Sir  J.  C,  Letters  of  Canning.     2  vols. 

Buckingham,  Duke  of,  Memoirs  of  the  Court  of  England  from  1811-20. 

2  vols.      1856. 
Buckingham,  Duke  of,  Court  of  George  IF.     2  vols.     1859. 
Canning's  Correspondence.     2  vols.      1887. 
Colchester,  Lord,  Diaiy.     3  vols. 
The  Creevey  Papers.     3  vols.      1903. 
The  Croker  Papers.     3  vols.      1884. 

Ellenborough,  Lord,  Political  Diary.     2  vols.     1828-30. 
Fitzgerald,  Percy,  George  IF.     2  vols.      1881. 
The  Greville  Memoirs. 
Holland,  Lord,  Further  Whig  Memoirs. 
Knighton,  Sir  William,  Memoirs.     2  vols.      1838. 
Liverpool,  Memoirs  of.     1827. 
Liverpool,  Lord,  Life  of.     3  vols.     1868. 
Peel,  Sir  Robert,  Memoirs.     2  vols.      1856. 
Pellew,  Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth.     3  vols.      1847. 
Stapelton,  A.  G.,  Life  of  Canning.     3  vols.      1831. 
Twiss,  H.,  Life  of  Lord  Eldon.     3  vols.     1844. 
Wellington,  Duke  of,  Supplementary  Despatches. 


FOR   THE   REIGN   OF   WILLIAM   IV 

Buckingham,  Duke  of,  Court  and  Cabinets  of  William  IV.  and  Queen 

Victoria.     2  vols.      1861. 
The  Creevey  Papers. 

Ellenborough,  Lord,  Political  Diary.     2  vols.      1828-30. 
Fitzgerald,  Percy,  William  IV.     2  vols.      1884. 
The  Greville  Memoirs. 

Grey,  Lord,  Correspondence  with  William  IV.     2  vols.      1867. 
The  Melbourne  Papers.      1889- 
Stockmar,  Baron,  Memoirs.     2  vols.      1872. 
Wellington,  Duke  of,  Maxims  and  Opinions.      1 852. 


Bibliography  ix 


FOR  THE   REIGN   OF  QUEEN    VICTORIA 

Anson,  Sir  William,  Law  and  Custom  of  the  Constitution.     2  vols.     1892. 

Argyll,  Duke  of,  Autobiography.     2  vols.      1906. 

Ashley's  Life  of  Lord  Palmerston.     2  vols.      1876. 

Beaconsfield,  Lord,  Selected  Speeches.     2  vols.      1882. 

Beacomjield,  Lord,  Life  of.     4  vols. 

Biddulph's  Lord  Cardwell  at  the  War  Office.      1904. 

Childers,  S.,  Life  of  H.  C.  E.  Childers.     2  vols.     1901. 

Dasent's  Life  of  Delane.     2  vols      1908 

Elliot's  Life  of  Lord  Goschen.     2  vols.     191 1. 

Fitzmaurice,  Lord  Edmond,  Life  of  Lord  Granville.     2  vols.      1905. 

The  Greville  Memoirs. 

Holland,  B.,  Life  of  the  Duke  of  Devonshire.     2  vols.      1911. 

Lee,  Sir  Sidney,  Queen  Victoria.      1904. 

Malet,  Sir  Alexander,  Overthrow  of  the  Germanic  Confederation  in  1866. 

1870. 
Malmesbury,  Lord,  Memoirs  of  an  ex-Minister.     2  vols.      1854. 
Martin,  Sir  Theodore,  Prince  Consort.     5  vols.      1875-80. 
Morley,  Lord,  Life  of  Gladstone.     3  vols.      1903. 
The  Panmure  Papers.      2  vols.      1908. 
Peel,  Sir  Robert,  Memoirs.     2  vols.      1856. 
The  Political  History  of  England.     12th  volume. 
The  Queens  Letters.     3  vols.      1908.  * 

Rumbold,  Sir  Horace,  Recollections. 
Rumbold,  Sir  Horace,  Further  Recollections. 
Salisbury,  Lord,  Essays.     2  vols.      1905. 
Stanmore,  Lord,  Life  of  Lord  Aberdeen.      1893. 
Walpole,  Sir  Spencer,  Life  of  Lord  John  Russell.     2  vols.      1889. 


THE  MONARCHY  IN    POLITICS 

REIGN  I :   GEORGE  III 

CHAPTER   I 

George  III.  and  Party  Government 

Complaints  of  the  evils  of  party  government  and  of  the 
need  for  discovering  some  more  excellent  way  are  among 
the  commonplaces  of  experience.  George  III.  came  to  the 
throne  .thoroughly  impressed  with  this  idea.  The  country 
should  be  governed  by  his  personal  friends,  not  by  Whigs 
nor  Tories  ;  ministers  should  be  selected  from  either  side, 
so  that  Government  might  be  based  on  what  was  called  "  a 
broad  bottom." 

This  is  well  shown  in  a  letter  from  Sir  John  Phillips,  M.P. 
for  Pembrokeshire,  to  the  minister  George  Grenville,  dated 
September  8,  1763,  in  which  he  alludes  to  his  having  cautioned 
the  King  against  the  danger  of  getting  into  the  hands  of  the 
Pitt  faction,  as  their  scheme  was  "  directly  opposite  to  His 
Majesty's,  which  was  to  abolish  all  party  distinctions,  and 
to  be  King  over  all  his  people  ;  whereas  theirs  was  to  take 
the  throne  by  storm,  to  foment  divisions,  to  proscribe  all 
His  Majesty's  subjects  from  his  service  but  themselves  and 
their  creatures,  and  to  rule  with  an  absolute  sway  ;  and  I 
went  on  so  far  as  to  say  that  if  His  Majesty  suffered  that 
faction  to  prevail  he  would  be  a  King  in  shackles."  (Grenville 
Papers,  ii.  116.)  This  system,  which  as  Grenville  said  in  a 
letter  to  Lord  Bute,  dated  March  25,  1763,  "  the  King 
thought  of  forming  for  his  future  government,"  was  bound 
to  be  "  attended  with  great  difficulties  "  (ib.  ii.  35),  as  the 
sequel  did  not  fail  to  show, 
i 


2  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Party  government  has  only  one  alternative,  and  that  is  a 
despotic  monarchy.  It  was  towards  this  that  George  III. 
unconsciously  tended.  His  mother's  exhortation  to  him  as  a 
boy  to  show  himself  a  king,  and  Lord  Bute's  teaching,  and 
Bolingbroke's  works,  such  as  "  An  idea  of  a  Patriot  King," 
had  worked  in  the  same  direction.  He  would  use  his  pre- 
rogative for  the  good  of  the  State,  and  do  away  with  the 
abuses  of  the  party  system.  So  the  word  "  prerogative  " 
became  a  fashionable  word  in  the  land.  (Walpole's  Memoirs, 
i.  16.) 

It  meant  the  ruling  of'  men  by  fear  and  favour,  by  their 
promotion  to  or  removal  from  lucrative  posts,  till  it  seemed 
as  if  the  whole  of  politics  resolved  itself  into  a  struggle  for 
place  and  office.  And  such  was  the  ferocity  of  the  struggle 
that  in  the  first  ten  years  of  George's  reign  there  were  as 
many  as  seven  ministries.  The  intriguing  and  plotting  that 
accompanied  this  rapid  scene-shifting,  the  transfer  of  men 
from  side  to  side  as  interest  or  personal  animosities  dictated, 
was  the  most  striking  feature  of  the  public  life  of  the  time. 

Everything  came  to  depend  on  the  King's  smile  or  the 
King's  frown.  The  monarch's  frown  might  not  cost  a  man 
his  head,  as  under  some  of  the  Roman  emperors,  but  it 
might  cost  him  his  livelihood.  A  change  of  Ministers  made 
every  salaried  place  unsafe.  Writing  to  her  husband  of  the 
political  proscription  that  followed  Lord  Bute's  accession  to 
power  in  1762,  Lady  Temple  said  :  "  It  is  believed  and  given 
out  that  even  to  a  hundredth  cousin  of  those  who  have  not 
behaved  well  are  to  march  out  of  the  most  trifling  places  ; 
it  is  well  if  our  two  window-peepers  won't  be  called  on." 
(December  17,  1762,  Grenville  Papers,  ii.  21.)  And  in  the 
strange  intrigue  which  occurred  in  August  1763  for  sub- 
stituting Mr.  Pitt  for  George  Grenville,  Pitt  insisted  on 
turning  out  almost  every  civil  officer  of  rank  in  the  King's 
service,  and  on  introducing  in  their  stead  all  who  had  be- 
longed to  the  Opposition  ;  though  even  the  King  stopped 
short  at  that.  {Grenville  to  Lord  Strange,  September  3,  1763, 
ib.  ii.  105.) 

The  King  could  be  most  gracious  to  his  friends,  but 
bitter  enough  to  opponents.  He  closely  studied  the  division 
lists,  and  woe  betide  the  man  who  voted  wrongly,     A  letter 


George  III.  and  Party  Government         3 

of  his  to  Grenville  on  November  25,  1763,  shows  the  sort  of 
thing  that  happened  :  "  The  Duke  of  Bedford  and  many 
others  pressed  for  the  dismissing  some  of  those  that  have 
gone  against  us.  ...  I  don't  differ  much  from  them  in  this, 
therefore  should  propose  dismissing  General  Conway  both 
from  his  civil  and  military  commissions  ;  also  Mr.  Fitz- 
herbert  (M.P.  for  Derby  and  a  Lord  of  the  Board  of  Trade), 
and  any  others  who  have  equally  with  these  gone  steadily 
against  us,  and  giving  it  out  that  the  rest  would  have 
the  same  fate  if  they  do  not  mend  their  conduct."  (ib. 
ii.  166.) 

Here  is  another  illustration  of  the  same  sort.  The  King 
writes  to  Grenville  after  seeing  the  division  list  on  the 
General  Warrants  debate :  "  The  defection  last  night  is 
undoubtedly  very  great.  .  .  .  Firmness  and  resolution  must 
now  be  shown,  and  no  one's  friend  saved  who  has  dared  to 
fly  off ;  this  alone  can  restore  order  and  save  this  country 
from  anarchy  ;  by  dismissing,  I  mean  not  till  the  question 
is  decided,  but  I  hope  in  a  fortnight,  that  those  who  have 
deserted  may  feel  that  I  am  not  to  be  neglected  unpunished." 
(ib.  ii.  267.) 

The  purport  of  the  letter  is  clearer  than  its  grammar, 
neither  grammar  nor  spelling  having  been  among  the  King's 
strong  points.  The  instances  of  this  revenge  for  difference 
of  politics  are  too  numerous  for  detailed  enumeration,  but 
the  case  of  General  Conway  caused  great  commotion  at  the 
time.  But  for  Grenville,  the  King,  who  "  showed  great 
resentment  at  Mr.  Conway's  conduct,"  would  have  dismissed 
him  forthwith.  (November  25,  1763.)  On  April  18,  1764, 
Grenville  had  regretfully  to  inform  Conway's  brother,  Lord 
Hertford,  that  the  King  had  resolved  to  deprive  his  brother 
of  his  employment  in  the  King's  Bedchamber,  and  of  the 
command  of  his  regiment  of  Dragoons,  (ib.  ii.  296.)  Lord 
Hertford,  whilst  not  defending  his  brother's  conduct,  ad- 
mitted the  justice  of  depriving  him  of  his  civil  office,  but 
contended  that  "  employments  in  the  army  had  commonly 
been  thought  to  be  out  of  the  reach  of  ministerial  influence." 
(April  26,  1764.)  Walpole  charged  Grenville  with  saying 
in  defence,  that  the  King  could  not  trust  his  army  in  the 
hands  of  men  who  were  against  his  measures,  and  he  made 


4  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

a  bold  remonstrance  against  the  doctrine  of  the  Ministerial 
Press,  that  officers  were  liable  to  dismission  for  their  behaviour 
in  Parliament.  "  Such  doctrines  were  new,  and  never  were 
avowed  before  ;  they  clashed  with  all  Parliamentary  free- 
dom, and  rendered  the  condition  of  officers  in  Parliament 
most  abject,  slavish,  and  dishonourable."  (Grenville  Papers, 
ii.  342,  to  T.  Pitt,  June  5,  1764.) 

The  King  never  hesitated  to  use  pressure  for  effecting 
his  political  wishes.  In  the  case  of  the  Royal  Marriage  Bill 
of  1772,  Lord  Mansfield  advised  him  to  compel  his  Ministers 
to  support  it  heartily  or  else  to  change  them  for  others. 
"  The  advice  was  taken  and  succeeded.  The  King  grew 
dictatorial,  and  all  his  creatures  kissed  the  earth.  It  was 
given  out  that  he  would  take  a  dissent  on  this  Bill  as  a 
personal  affront."  (Walpole,  Last  Journals,  i.  36.)  The 
King  wrote  to  Lord  Hertford,  General  Conway's  brother, 
complaining  grievously  to  him  of  Conway's  vote  against  the 
Bill.  (ib.  i.  52,  141.)  He  also  wrote  to  Lord  Sefton  for 
having  voted  against  it,  so  causing  him  to  absent  himself 
when  the  question  came  on  again,  (ib.  i.  53.)  Compulsion 
was  also  put  on  Col.  Burgoyne  to  vote  for  the  measure. 

But  the  King  found  his  throne  no  bed  of  roses,  as  he  put 
it  much  later  in  life.  When  General  Irwin  remonstrated 
with  him  for  having  recalled  some  troops  from  Gibraltar, 
the  King  replied  that  he  agreed  with  the  General,  but  that 
his  Ministers  were  responsible  for  it.  "  You  see  my  situa- 
tion. Ce  metier  de  politique  est  un  tres  vilain  metier  ;  c'est 
le  metier  d'unfaquin  ;  ce  riest  pas  le  metier  d'un  gentilhomme. 
(Grenville  Papers,  iv.  54,  November  5,  1767.) 

It  is  difficult  to  conceive  a  system  more  demoralising  to 
the  political  life  of  the  time.  For  every  one  had  not  the 
moral  independence  to  write  as  Wilkes  did  to  Lord  Temple 
on  July  9,  1763  :  "  I  hear  from  all  hands  that  the  King  is 
enraged  at  my  insolence,  as  he  terms  it :  I  regard  not  his 
frowns,  nor  his  smiles.  I  will  ever  be  his  faithful  servant, 
never  his  slave.  .  .  .  Hypocrisy,  meanness,  ignorance,  and 
insolence  characterise  the  king  I  obey.  My  independent 
spirit  will  never  take  a  favour  from  such  a  man."     (ib.  ii.  73.) 

When  in  July  1766  Pitt  came  into  power  again  after 
Lord  Rockingham,  the  Duke  of  Grafton  succeeding  to  the 


George  III.  and  Party  Government         5 

Treasuryship,  the  King  wrote  to  Pitt  to  say  that  he  had 
signed  the  warrant  for  making  him  the  Earl  of  Chatham 
and  Privy  Seal,  as  he  knew  the  Earl  of  Chatham  would 
"  zealously  give  his  mind  to  destroying  all  party  distinc- 
tions, and  restoring  that  subordination  to  Government 
which  could  alone  preserve  that  inestimable  blessing  Liberty 
from  degenerating  into  licentiousness."  (Chatham  Corre- 
spondence, iii.  21.) 

In  another  letter  of  December  2  of  the  same  year,  he 
declared  the  object  of  the  Chatham  Ministry  to  be  "  to  rout 
out  the  present  method  of  parties  banding  together  "  ;  which 
could  only  be  obtained  by  "  withstanding  their  unjust 
demands,  as  well  as  by  engaging  able  men,  be  their  private 
connections  where  they  will."  (ib.  iii.  137.)  The  idea  was 
clearly  to  try  to  get  a  national,  non-party  Government. 
"  From  the  hour  you  entered  into  office,"  he  wrote  to  Chatham 
on  May  30,  1767,  "  I  have  uniformly  relied  on  your  firmness 
to  act  in  defiance  of  that  hydra  faction  which  has  never 
appeared  to  that  height  it  now  does  till  within  these  few 
weeks.  Though  your  relations,  the  Bedfords  and  the 
Rockinghams,  were  joined  with  the  intention  to  storm  my 
Closet,  yet  if  I  was  mean  enough  to  submit  they  would  not 
join  in  forming  an  administration."     (ib.  iii.  261.) 

Everything  depends  on  the  point  of  view.  Whilst  the 
King  would  thus  talk  of  his  Closet  being  stormed,  or  of 
himself  as  a  prisoner  in  it,  his  servants  thought  of  him  as 
a  growing  tyrant,  seeking  increasing  strength  from  a  deliberate 
policy  of  sowing  division  amongst  them.  Thus  on  March  12, 
1767,  Grenville  wrote  of  an  administration  on  a  wide  and 
extended  idea  of  all  parties  without  exception  as  "  the  only 
means  to  destroy  the  perpetual  idea  of  change,  by  destroy- 
ing the  game  of  fighting  one  set  of  men  against  another." 
(Grenville  Papers,  iv.  215.) 

So  both  the  King  and  his  statesmen  had  before  their 
minds  the  same  ideal  of  a  Government  which,  by  consisting  of 
all  parties,  should  be  free  from  the  opposition  of  any  party. 

Public  men  never  so  despaired  of  the  country  as  during 
the  time  when  party  government  had  been  reduced  almost 
to  nothing.  On  July  30,  1767,  Lord  Mansfield  thus  wrote 
to  Grenville  :    "  God  knows  what  is  to  come   next.     One 


6  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

faction  for  another.  A  series  of  weak  Administrations  and 
perpetual  strong  opposition  will  lead  to  destruction.  A 
struggle  of  places  and  pensions  is  scandalous.  The  cure 
must  come  by  serious  conviction."  (Grenville  Papers, 
iv.  129.)  To  which  Grenville  replied  that  only  by  such 
conviction  and  right  measures  could  there  be  any  salvation 
from  the  annual  struggle  for  places  and  pensions  which  then 
constituted  politics,  (ib.  iv.  149.)  "  What  a  fate,"  wrote 
Augustus  Hervey  to  Grenville  on  October  17,  1767,  "  is 
hanging  over  our  poor  ruined  country."  (ib.  iv.  175.)  Lord 
Suffolk  wrote  of  "  the  disgraceful  condition  of  this  deluded 
country."  (ib.  iv.  437.)  Lord  Chatham,  writing  to  Rock- 
ingham on  November  15,  1770,  spoke  of  the  ruin  of  the 
kingdom,  together  with  the  destruction  of  this  free  country 
as  "  immediately  imminent."  Of  course  partisans  always 
take  this  view  of  the  country,  especially  if  out  of  office  them- 
selves ;  but  when  confronted  with  similar  lamentations  in 
our  own  day,  it  is  comforting  to  remember  that  the  country 
has  survived  similar  or  worse  lamentations  in  the  past. 

George's  idea  was  to  rule  Parliament  by  corrupting  it. 
Never  was  corruption  more  unblushing  than  in  that  golden 
age  of  monarchy.  "  With  a  due  exertion  of  punishments 
as  well  as  rewards  faction  will  be  mastered,"  he  wrote  to 
Chatham  on  May  30,  1770.  A  great  part  of  the  Civil  List 
was  spent  on  the  direct  purchase  of  votes  in  Parliament. 
On  March  14,  1770,  Lord  Chatham  spoke  in  favour  of  a 
motion,  which  was  negatived,  for  an  inquiry  into  the  state 
and  expenditure  of  the  Civil  List.  He  contended  that  its 
expenses  were  as  much  open  to  public  inquiry  as  any  other 
grant  of  the  people  to  any  other  purpose,  and  he  spoke  out 
boldly  against  the  Georgian  system :  "I  will  trust  no 
sovereign  in  the  world  with  the  means  of  purchasing  the 
liberties  of  the  people.  When  I  had  the  honour  of  being  the 
confidential  keeper  of  the  King's  intention,  he  assured  me 
that  he  never  intended  to  exceed  the  allowance  which  was 
made  by  Parliament."  As  the  money  did  not  go  in  personal 
dissipation,  nor  in  secret  service  pay,  how,  he  asked,  did  it 
go  ?  Did  the  King  want  it  for  a  palace  or  for  the  encourage- 
ment of  art ;  or  did  he  mean  "  by  drawing  the  purse-strings 
of  his  subjects,  to  spread  corruption  through  the  people,  to 


George  III.  and  Party  Government         7 

procure  a"5  Parliament,  like  a  packed  jury,  ready  to  acquit 
his  ministers  at  all  adventures  "  ?  It  was  the  last  that  he 
really  wanted  it  for.  (March  14,  17C6,  Chatham  Correspond- 
ence, iii.  427.) 

Democracies  are  not  immune  from  corruption,  but  corrup- 
tion was  never  worse  than  in  the  high  monarchical  and 
aristocratic  days  of  George  III.,  when  votes  in  Parliament 
always  had  their  price.  Lord  Chatham  declared  in  this 
Civil  List  debate  that  Lord  Camden  lost  a  pension  of  £1500 
"  for  the  vote  he  gave  in  this  House  in  favour  of  the  right  of 
election  in  the  people."     {Rockingham  Memoirs,  ii.  67,  68.) 

This  torrent  of  corruption  that  overwhelmed  the  country 
was  the  main  weapon  on  which  the  Crown  relied  for  asserting 
its  supremacy.  When  Whigs  like  the  Duke  of  Richmond 
described  the  overgrown  influence  of  the  Crown  as  "  the 
great  root  evil  of  all "  (ib.  ii.  215,  318),  this  was  what 
they  meant.  "  The  grievances  we  feel,"  wrote  Lord  Rock- 
ingham on  February  28,  1780,  "  and  the  cause  of  our  mis- 
fortune, arise  from  the  corruption  of  men  when  chosen 
into  Parliament.  Cut  off  the  ways  and  means  of  corrup- 
tion, and  the  effect  must  and  will  naturally  cease.  .  .  .  The 
great  number  of  offices  of  more  or  less  emolument,  which 
are  now  tenable  by  parties  sitting  in  Parliament,  really 
operate  like  prizes  in  a  lottery.  An  interested  man  purchases 
a  seat  upon  the  same  principle  as  a  person  buys  a  lottery 
ticket.  The  value  of  the  ticket  depends  upon  the  quantum 
of  prizes  in  the  wheel."  Therefore  he  much  approved  of 
Burke's  proposal  to  cut  off  thirty-nine  offices  tenable  by 
members  of  the  Commons,  and  of  eleven  held  by  the  peers. 
"  This  indeed  was  striking  at  the  influence  of  the  Crown 
over  persons  in  Parliament."     (ib.  ii.  398.) 

GrenWlle's  Election  Bill,  passed  in  March  1774,  did 
something  to  remedy  the  evil.  Walpole  described  it  as  the 
best  measure  he  remembered  in  his  time,  and  a  most  unex- 
pected mound  against  corruption.     (Last  Journals,  i.  315.) 

The  supposed  constitutional  principle  of  the  supremacy 
of  the  Minister  over  the  Monarch  either  did  not  exist  or 
ceased  to  exist  under  such  a  system.  In  May  1765,  when 
the  King  was  meditating  one  of  his  frequent  changes  of 
ministries,  "  he  told  George  Grenville  (then  his  chief  Minister) 


8  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

he  would  have  him  adjourn  Parliament  for  a  fortnight." 
Grenville  declared  he  could  not  do  it,  and  had  to  beg  the 
King  not  to  "  put  him  on  anything  disgraceful  or  dishonour- 
able "  ;  that  it  was  not  his  place  to  adjourn  Parliament 
with  a  view  to  a  change  of  Government  made  without  his 
advice  and  against  his  approval.     (Grenville  Papers,  iii.  171.) 

George  III.  had  a  natural  bias  towards  the  wrong  line  in 
politics,  but  from  his  errors  benefits  ensued.  The  cause  of 
representative  government  owes  much  to  him  accidentally  ; 
for,  had  he  not  made  the  House  of  Commons  four  times 
expel  Wilkes  after  having  been  four  times  elected  by  Middle- 
sex ;  had  he  not  compelled  the  same  House  to  declare  the 
Court  candidate,  who  was  not  chosen,  the  sitting  member  ; 
the  exclusive  rights  of  electors  to  choose  their  own  repre- 
sentatives might  never  have  been  vindicated.  It  was  due 
also  to  his  action  in  the  matter  that  public  meetings  became 
political  customs,  in  the  summer  of  1769.  (Rockingham 
Memoirs,  ii.  93.) 

When  on  May  14,  1770,  Lord  Chatham  moved  an  address 
to  the  King  to  dissolve  Parliament  and  call  a  fresh  one,  the 
King  declared  to  General  Conway  that  he  would  abdicate 
sooner.  Laying  his  hand  on  his  sword,  he  said  :  "I  will 
have  recourse  to  this  sooner  than  yield  to  a  dissolution." 
(ib.  ii.  179.) 

The  system  reduced  most  politicians  to  such  a  state  of 
thraldom  that  it  became  impossible  to  reach  the  royal  mind 
with  counsels  of  moderation.  This  showed  itself  with  speci- 
ally fatal  effects  in  the  war  with  the  American  colonies.  It 
may  be  that,  looked  at  from  the  world's  point  of  view,  their 
loss  was  not  the  misfortune  that  contemporaries  thought. 
But  in  any  case  the  King,  or  rather  Constitutional  Monarchy, 
must  bear  a  large  share  of  the  blame  ;  for  the  King  was 
personally  no  more  in  the  wrong  than  most  of  his  con- 
temporaries. "  There  is  no  man,"  wrote  Lord  Rockingham 
in  December  1776,  "  who  has  integrity  and  magnanimity 
of  mind  sufficient  to  enable  him  to  go  and  say  to  His  Majesty, 
The  measures  and  policy  of  the  Ministers  towards  America 
are  erroneous  ;  the  adherence  to  them  is  destruction."  (ib. 
ii.  303.)  Yet  the  King,  though  the  thought  of  American 
independence  filled  him  with  the  fear  of  his  country  falling 


George  III.  and  Party  Government         9 

"  into  a  very  low  class  among  the  European  States,"  told 
Shelburne  later  how  much  he  felt  the  dismemberment  of 
the  Empire,  and  how  miserable  he  would  be  if  he  did  not 
feel  that  no  blame  for  it  could  be  laid  at  his  door  ;  and,  as 
he  added  with  some  humour,  "  did  I  not  also  know  that 
knavery  seems  to  be  so  much  the  striking  feature  of  the 
inhabitants  that  it  may  not  in  the  end  be  an  evil  that  they 
will  become  aliens  to  this  kingdom."  (Fitzmaurice's  Shel- 
burne, ii.  203.) 

The  result  of  the  attempt  to  do  away  with  party  govern- 
ment may  be  summed  up  in  Wal pole's  words,  who  describes 
"  all  parties  as  so  jumbled  and  so  prostituted  that  no  shadow 
of  principles  remained  in  any  party  ;  nor  could  any  man  say 
which  faction  was  Whig  or  Tory.  The  Crown  was  humbled 
and  disgraced ;  the  people  were  sold."  (Last  Journals, 
ii.  528.) 

Nor  should  the  effect  of  all  this  instability  on  our  foreign 
relations  be  forgotten.  In  1766  both  the  King  and  Chatham 
were  desirous  of  making  an  alliance  with  Prussia  and  Russia, 
like  that  of  the  Seven  Years'  War  time,  but  Prussia  held 
back,  owing  in  part,  according  to  Lord  Shelburne,  to  "  the 
great  fluctuations  of  administration  for  some  time  past." 
(Chatham  Correspondence,  iii.  91.)  When  Sir  Andrew  Mitchell, 
in  an  audience  with  the  King  of  Prussia,  tried  to  reassure 
him  of  the  stability  of  the  Chatham  Government,  that 
monarch  replied  that  he  wished  it  might  be  so,  but  that  till 
he  saw  more  stability  in  our  administration,  he  did  not 
choose  any  further  connections  with  us.  (ib.  iii.  142.) 
Which  proves  that  the  instability  of  foreign  policy  so  generally 
held  to  be  a  vice  of  democracies  may  be  just  as  pronounced 
under  certain  forms  of  monarchy  ;  having  been  actually  a 
political  reproach  to  us  in  the  early  years  of  George  III. 


CHAPTER   II 

Lord  Bute,  the  Favourite 

Great  as  is  the  debt  of  gratitude  which  this  country  owes 
to  Lord  Bute  for  having  freed  it  at  last  from  the  Seven  Years' 
War  by  the  Peace  of  Paris  in  1763,  it  cannot  be  forgotten 
that  it  was  he  who  chiefly  aided  George  III.  in  his  attack  on 
party  government ;  and  his  story  affords  a  good  illustra- 
tion of  the  malign  influence  often  exercised  over  monarchs 
by  favourites  or  personal  friends  behind  the  back  of  the 
responsible  Ministry  for  the  time  being.  The  difficulty  is 
one  to  which  monarchies  seem  peculiarly  liable,  and  one 
to  which  our  own  system  has  often  shown  itself  liable  since 
the  days  of  Lord  Bute. 

The  odd  chance  which  brought  Bute  to  the  political 
surface  shows  the  force  of  accident  over  mortal  affairs.  At 
the  racecourse  at  Egham,  when  a  shower  of  rain  delayed  the 
departure  of  the  spectators,  Frederick,  Prince  of  Wales, 
desiring  some  one  to  make  up  a  rubber  at  whist  during  the 
shower,  invited  Bute  into  his  tent ;  and  so  began  an  intimacy 
with  royalty  which  ended  in  bringing  about  the  close  relation- 
ship between  Bute  and  the  future  George  III.  When  George 
became  King  in  1760,  Bute  was  made  a  Privy  Councillor 
on  October  27,  and  on  November  15  he  was  made  groom  of 
the  stole  and  gentleman  of  the  Bedchamber.  He  had  at 
the  time  no  seat  in  Parliament,  but  for  all  that  this  groom 
of  the  stole  became  the  King's  real  Prime  Adviser  behind 
and  above  the  actual  Minister  of  the  day. 

The  Duke  of  Newcastle  had  been  in  political  service  for 
fifty  years,  and  was  chief  Minister  in  the  Parliament  elected 
in  1761.  But  Lord  Bute  was  the  real  Minister.  He  it  was 
who  had  purposely  delayed  the  issue  of  writs  in  order  to 
have  more  time  for  securing  seats  for  the  personal  adherents 
of  the  Crown.     (Albemarle's  Memoirs  of  Rockingham,  i.  61.) 


Lord  Bute,  the  Favourite  1 1 

He  it  was  who  had  selected  Sir  John  Cust  as  Speaker  "  on 
account  of  his  Tory  politics."  (ib.  i.  69.)  After  Pitt  had 
resigned  in  October  1761,  it  remained  to  Bute  to  rid  himself 
of  Newcastle.  This  he  did  by  a  process  of  systematic  slights, 
so  that  we  find  the  poor  Duke  thus  writing  to  Lord  Hard- 
wicke  on  December  20,  1761  :  "In  this  situation  I  cannot, 
I  will  not  go  on  to  execute  the  most  burthensome,  the  most 
difficult,  the  most  responsible  office  in  the  whole  kingdom 
without  rightful  concert,  confidence,  and  communication  ; 
and  that  I  desire  my  Lord  Bute  may  be  told."  (ib.  i.  104.) 
On  February  17,  1762,  he  exclaims  :  "  Is  it  possible  for 
me  to  go  on  with  this  man  ?  "  (ib.  i.  101) ;  and  on  May  10, 
1762,  he  complains  of  Bute's  behaviour  to  him  as  hardly 
what  any  gentleman  would  show  to  the  most  insignificant. 

On  the  26th  of  that  month  Newcastle  resigned,  and  Lord 
Bute  took  his  place.  In  telling  Lord  Rockingham  of  the 
manner  of  his  dismission  the  Duke  writes  :  "  The  King  did 
not  drop  one  word  of  censure  at  my  leaving  him,  nor  even 
made  me  a  polite  compliment,  after  near  fifty  years'  service, 
and  devotion  to  the  interest  of  his  Royal  family.  I  will  say 
nothing  more  of  myself,  but  that  I  believe  never  any  man  was 
so  dismissed."     (ib.  i.  112.) 

A  few   months  later  (October  28,   1762)  we  find  him 

describing    as    "  the    most    extraordinary    event    that    has 

happened  in  any  court  of  Europe  "  the  dismission  from  the 

post   of   Lord   Chamberlain   of   the   Household   of   another 

"  servant  "  of  the  Crown,  the  fourth  Duke  of  Devonshire, 

who  had  preceded  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  as  Prime  Minister 

from  November  1756  to  March  1757.     The  Duke  went  to 

St.  James's  and  desired  to  speak  with  the  King  or  Lord  Bute. 

"  The  page  came  out  and  told  the  Duke  that  His  Majesty 

had  commanded  to  tell  His  Grace  that  he  would  not  see  him. 

The  Duke  then  desired  to  know  to  whom  His  Majesty  would 

have  him  deliver  his  staff.     His  Majesty  sent  him  word  by 

the  same  page  that  he  would  send  his  orders  to  the  Duke  of 

Devonshire.     My  Lord  Duke  has  since  been  with  my  Lord 

Egremont,  and  has  delivered  to  him  his  key  and  staff.     I 

believe  there  never  was  such  a  behaviour  to  the  first  and 

best  subject  the  King  has."     (ib.  i.  136.)     But  this  was  not 

all,  for  on  November  4  the  King  in  Council  "  called  for  the 


12  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

book,  and  with  his  own  hand  struck  out  the  Duke  of  Devon- 
shire's name  from  the  list  of  Privy  Councillors  "  :  which 
"  shocking  event,"  says  Newcastle,  "  enraged,  frightened, 
and  alarmed  everybody." 

Bute  was  perfectly  sincere  and  disinterested  in  his  attach- 
ment to  the  King.  Writing  to  Shelburne  in  October  1762, 
he  speaks  of  "  every  wish  of  his  soul  holding  to  sacrifices  of 
himself  as  nothing,  if  it  procures  any  real  advantage  to  my 
country,  and  to  him  who  is  also  my  King,  my  Master,  and 
my  Friend."  And  "  had  I  ever  been  weak  enough  to  ambi- 
tion such  trifles  (as  titles,  etc.),  all  that  the  Crown  could 
possibly  bestow  has  been  certainly  within  my  grasp  ever 
since  the  King's  accession."  He  admired  Henry  Fox  for 
standing  with  him  in  supporting  "the  best  of  Princes  against 
the  most  ungenerous,  the  most  ungrateful  set  of  men  this 
country  ever  produced."  When  writing  of  the  King,  he 
often  lapsed  into  the  use  of  the  capital  H  as  in  :  "I  own  I  feel 
for  .Him,  I  know  you  do  ;  I  wish  all  who  serve  Him  did  the 
same."  (November  3,  1762.)  So  also  did  Henry  Fox : 
Him,  His,  HimseU,  in  a  letter  to  Bute  of  March  27,  1763  ; 
as  if  there  was  some  unconscious  tendency  at  that  time  to 
the  deification  of  the  monarch.  In  any  case  Bute  wished  to 
make  the  monarchy  a  reality.  "  Have  we  really  monarchy 
in  this  kingdom,"  he  writes  to  Shelburne,  "  or  is  there  only  a 
puppet  dressed  out  with  regal  robes  to  serve  the  purposes  of 
every  interested  man  ;  who  at  every  turn  is  to  be  buffeted 
at  pleasure  ?  " 

The  mode  of  working  is  well  shown  in  connection  with 
the  famous  political  proscription  of  1762,  when  Fox,  writing 
to  Bute,  says  :  "  Strip  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  of  his  three 
Lieutenancies  immediately.  I'll  answer  for  the  good  effect 
of  it,  and  then  go  on  to  the  general  rout.  ...  In  regard 
to  their  numerous  dependants  in  Crown  employments,  it 
behoves  your  lordship  in  particular  to  leave  none  of  them. 
Their  connections  spread  very  wide,  and  every  one  of  them, 
their  relations  and  friends,  is  in  his  heart  your  enemy.  They 
all  think  themselves  secure,  and  many  talk  with  their  own 
mouths,  all  by  those  of  their  relations  and  acquaintances, 
against  your  lordship.  Turn  the  tables,  and  you  will  immedi- 
ately have  thousands  who  will  think  the  safety  of  themselves 


Lord  Bute,  the  Favourite  13 

or  their  friends  depends  on  your  lordship,  and  will  therefore 
be  sincere  and  active  friends."  (Fitzmaurice's  Shelburne, 
i.  137.) 

And  so  it  was  done.  Not  only  were  the  Duke  of  New- 
castle, Lord  Halifax,  and  Lord  Rockingham  deprived  of 
their  Lord-Lieutenancies  as  the  Duke  of  Devonshire  had  been 
driven  to  resign  his,  but  "  every  relative,  friend,  or  dependant 
of  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  was,  one  after  the  other,  turned 
out  of  his  office,  and  their  proscription  extended  even  to  the 
offices  of  Customs  and  Excise  "  (Grenville  Papers,  iii.  152) — 
a  proceeding  justly  characterised  by  the  Duke  of  Devonshire 
as  "  cruel,  unjust,  and  unheard  of."  Even  men  holding 
"  such  humble  situations  as  doorkeepers  were  thrust  out  " 
of  their  posts.  The  Duke  of  Newcastle  called  it  "  the  most 
cruel  and  inhuman  list  that  was  ever  seen,  not  only  in  a  free 
country,  but  even  in  any  civilised  nation."  But  there  is 
always  another  side  to  such  episodes,  and  it  appears  that 
many  of  these  officials,  not  believing  that  Bute's  reign  would 
last,  and  expecting  soon  to  be  back  under  their  old  master, 
the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  behaved  to  Bute  with  marked  in- 
civility. And  in  cases  where  the  proscribed  were  real  objects 
of  compassion,  Bute  gave  them  other  places  equal  in  value 
to  those  of  which  they  had  been  deprived.  (Rigby  to  the 
Duke  of  Bedford  in  the  Bedford  Correspondence,  iii.  186,  187, 
February  3,  1763.) 

His  contemporaries  hated  Bute  with  special  rancour.  He 
was  more  vilified  and  caricatured  than  any  one  ;  his  very 
life  was  not  safe  in  the  streets.  But  posterity  may  look  upon 
him  with  more  indulgence.  The  quarrelling  Whig  aristo- 
cracy over  which  he  wished  the  King  to  rule  had  no  strong 
claim  to  popular  affection,  and  it  had  landed  the  country  in 
a  war  with  France  and  Spain,  which,  under  Pitt  and  New- 
castle, seemed  destined  to  be  eternal.  Bute  succeeded  in 
making  peace  with  both  France  and  Spain  (February  10, 
1763),  and  his  policy  of  disconnecting  this  country  from 
German  politics  must  also  be  placed  to  the  credit  of  his 
memory.  It  is  quite  possible  that  with  a  stronger  pupil 
than  George  III.  Bute's  career  might  not  have  proved  so 
unsuccessful  and  inglorious  as  many  historians  declare  it  to 
have  been. 


14  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

As  it  was,  during  all  the  early  years  of  the  reign  the 
country  was  in  one  prolonged  crisis  of  shifting  ministries, 
and  political  mutability  became  such  a  feature  of  the  country 
that  even  a  Frenchman  could  say  in  mockery  that  the 
instability  of  English  politics  was  a  reflex  of  the  instability 
of  the  surrounding  sea.  But  what  chance  had  a  Minister 
of  carrying  out  a  consistent  or  definite  policy  under  such 
conditions  ?  What  could  be  done  with  a  King  whose 
apparent  chief  Minister  was  not  his  real  one,  and  whose 
policy  was  directed  by  the  mind  behind  the  screen  ?  The 
Memoirs  of  the  time  show  the  frantic  and  futile  efforts  by 
which  successive  Premiers  tried  to  shake  themselves  free  of 
this  incubus. 

Grenville,  on  succeeding  to  Bute  in  April  1763,  stipu- 
lated with  the  King  that  Bute  should  never  "  publicly  or 
privately  intermeddle  with  any  business  whatever  "  (Gren- 
ville Papers,  iii.  214),  and  Bute  on  September  4, 1763,  speaks 
of  himself  as  "  having  absolutely  abandoned  all  thoughts 
of  interfering  more  in  business,  having  seen  every  honest 
wish  and  endeavour,  every  action  in  his  life,  turned  in  the 
most  false  and  cruel  light."  (Fitzmaurice's  Shelburne,  i. 
207.)  A  few  weeks  later,  on  September  20,  he  wrote  :  "I 
protest  on  the  word  of  a  gentleman  I  know  no  more  of 
politics,  of  the  King,  or  the  Ministers'  ideas  than  I  do  of  the 
Mogul's  Court."  (ib.  i.  209.)  But  a  plot  to  oust  Grenville 
from  office  seems  to  have  continued  during  most  of  the  two 
years  that  he  held  it. 

In  August  1763  there  was  a  fierce  intrigue  to  get  Pitt 
to  supersede  him,  and  when  another  similar  plot  occurred 
in  May  1765,  Pitt  and  Lord  Temple  both  expressed  their 
determination  to  form  no  Ministry  whilst  Bute's  power 
continued.  (Grenville  Papers,  iii.  41,  226.)  Pitt  would 
have  nothing  to  do  with  a  change  of  Government  unless 
Bute's  banishment  were  made  a  condition  precedent.  (May 
20,  1765,  ib.  iii.  173.)  In  the  same  month  of  political  crisis 
we  find  Grenville  complaining  bitterly  to  the  King  of  the 
adverse  influence  of  Bute  and  the  King's  uncle,  the  Duke 
of  Cumberland,  and  insisting  with  vigour  against  either  of 
them  having  anything  to  do  with  the  Government,  (ib. 
iii.  179,  180,  183.)     One  of  his  conditions  for  his  Cabinet's 


Lord  Bute,  the  Favourite  15 

remaining  in  office  was  the  King's  authorisation  to  say 
that  :  "  Lord  Bute  had  nothing  to  say  in  His  Majesty's 
Councils  in  any  manner  or  shape  whatever." 

In  the  following  month,  on  June  12,  1765,  Lord  Gren- 
ville,  in  company  with  Lords  Sandwich  and  Halifax  and 
the  Duke  of  Bedford,  went  to  the  King  and  read  a  remon- 
strance, which  it  took  an  hour  to  read,  against  this  system ; 
but  the  only  effect  was  that  the  King  declared  on  their 
departure  that,  had  he  not  broken  out  into  a  profuse  per- 
spiration, he  must  have  suffocated  from  indignation.  The 
next  month,  on  July  8,  the  Duke  of  Bedford  in  a  letter  to 
Grenville  (Rockingham  Memoirs,  i.  212)  brushed  aside  all 
these  plots  as  "  childish  transactions,"  and  expressed  his 
disbelief  in  any  ministry  being  formed  which  was  con- 
structed "  on  no  better  foundation  than  the  support  of 
Lord  Bute's  favouritism."  But  two  days  later  Grenville 
received  orders  to  surrender  the  seals  of  office. 

The  worst  side  of  the  story  is  that  all  the  time  that  this 
underhand  plotting  was  going  on,  the  King  was  repeatedly 
assuring  his  Minister  of  his  confidence  and  friendship,  as  on 
October  20,  1763,  when  he  told  his  Minister  that  he  spoke  to 
him  "  with  an  openness  and  confidence  with  which  he  spoke 
to  no  other  of  his  servants  "  ;  or  on  February  26,  1764,  when 
he  told  him  that  he  knew  the  difference  between  him  and 
his  other  servants  ;  "  they  have  many  purposes  to  serve, 
you  have  none  but  my  service  and  that  of  the  public." 
(Grenville  Papers,  ii.  217,  493.)  But  the  system  clearly 
demanded  a  tactfulness  on  the  part  of  the  monarch  which 
tended  to  shade  off  into  duplicity. 

Jenkinson  (later  Lord  Liverpool)  denied  at  the  time  that 
Bute  had  brought  the  change  of  Ministry  about,  but  it  was 
admitted  that  the  King  wrote  him  a  journal  every  day  of 
passing  events,  and  as  minute  a  one  as  if  "  your  boy  at 
school  was  directed  by  you  to  write  his  journal  to  you." 
(Jenkinson  to  Grenville,  ib.  iii.  220,  November  1765.) 

Rightly  or  wrongly  Bute's  hand  was  seen  behind  every- 
thing. To  him  the  Duke  of  Bedford  attributed  the  three 
days'  riot  which  occurred  in  May  1765,  when  the  mob,  for 
his  having  caused  the  rejection  in  the  Lords  of  a  measure 
for  the  relief  of  the  Spitalflelds  weavers  from  French  com- 


1 6  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

petition,  sought  to  destroy  Bedford  House  and  murder  its 
owner,  and  would  probably  have  done  both  but  for  pro- 
tection by  the  Military.  And  when  the  King  tried  to  assure 
him  to  the  contrary,  the  Duke  persisted  that  it  was  so. 

In  October  1778  Bute's  son,  Lord  Mountstuart,  published 
in  the  papers  a  letter  in  which  he  said  that  Lord  Bute  on  his 
solemn  word  of  honour  authorised  him  to  declare  that  since 
the  Duke  of  Cumberland  had  consulted  him  about  a  new 
Ministry  in  1765  to  that  date  he  had  not  waited  on  the  King 
except  at  a  lev£e  or  Drawing-room,  and  that  he  had  never 
offered  his  advice  or  opinion  about  offices  or  measures, 
directly  or  indirectly,  by  himself  or  any  other.  But  the 
impression  of  contemporary  letters  was  certainly  to  the  effect 
that  his  influence  survived  1765.  On  January  3,  1766, 
when  Lord  Rockingham's  Ministry  was  enjoying  a  fitful  life, 
we  find  Lord  Hardwicke  writing  to  C.  Yorke,  his  brother, 
"  Lord  Bute  will  overturn  any  Ministry  who  do  not  court 
him,  and  yet  they  most  all  disclaim  him  by  turns.  The 
King  should  banish  him."  And  the  conversation  recorded 
between  Bute  and  Wedderburn  in  connection  with  the 
mysterious  intrigue  of  July  1767  shows  that  Bute's  political 
influence  was  by  no  means  dead  even  then.  (Grenville 
Papers,  iv.  120,  114.)  "  It  is  of  very  little  importance," 
wrote  W.  G.  Hamilton  to  Lord  Temple  on  July  29,  1767, 
"  what  are  the  Duke  of  Grafton's  sentiments,  and  still  less 
what  are  his  Lordship's  (Lord  Chatham's),  provided  Bute 
continues  of  the  mind  he  seems  to  be  in  at  present." 
(ib.  iv.  116.) 

Lord  Rockingham  in  a  letter  to  the  Duke  of  Portland 
on  September  15,  1767,  claimed  as  one  of  the  titles  of 
his  Ministry  to  popular  approval  their  "  steady  and  un- 
alterable determination  of  ever  resisting  and  attempting 
to  restrain  the  power  and  influence  of  Lord  Bute." 
(Memoirs,  ii.  57,  58.) 

It  is  difficult  to  reconcile  all  this  contemporary  belief 
with  the  story  told  to  Greville  by  the  Duke  of  York  :  that 
the  last  time  George  III.  ever  saw  Bute  was  in  the  pavilion 
at  Kew  in  1764,  when  Bute  is  said  to  have  violently  attacked 
the  King  for  abandoning  and  neglecting  him.  Whereupon 
the   King   declared   he  would  never  correspond  with  him 


Lord  Bute,  the  Favourite  17 

again  except  through  his  Ministers  ;  Bute  said  he  would 
never  see  him  again  ;  and  so  they  parted  in  anger.  (Memoirs, 
i.  86.) 

But  it  is  immaterial  when  precisely  Bute's  influence 
came  to  an  end.  His  career  serves  to  illustrate  the  baneful 
effect  of  the  conflict  of  views  and  instability  of  policy  which 
is  bound  to  ensue  when  the  chief  Minister  advises  one  policy 
and  the  chief  friend  another  :  a  state  of  things  which  has  a 
strong  natural  affinity  with  constitutional  monarchy.  But 
before  parting  with  Bute  it  seems  only  fair  to  let  him  speak 
for  himself,  as  he  did  in  a  letter  inviting  the  Duke  of  Bedford 
to  become  President  of  the  Council,  on  April  2,  1763 : 
"  When  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  went  out,  and  I  found  myself 
under  the  necessity  to  accept  my  present  situation,  I  did  it 
with  the  utmost  reluctance  ;  and  nothing  but  the  King's 
safety  and  independence  could  have  made  me  acquiesce  in 
a  way  of  life  so  opposite  to  my  feelings  ;  nor  did  I  kiss  the 
King's  hand  till  I  had  received  his  solemn  promise  to  go 
out  when  peace  was  once  established.  Thanks  to  a  kind 
Providence  and  Your  Grace's  abilities  that  day  is  now  come, 
and  well  it  is  so,  for  .  .  .  the  state  of  my  health  is  weak, 
and  any  constant  application  to  business  is  declared  to  be 
so  fatal  to  me  that  I  find  myself  under  the  unpleasant  neces- 
sity of  putting  my  much-loved  sovereign  in  mind  of  his 
promise.  I  have  done  so,  and  after  scenes  that  I  can  never 
forget,  his  tenderness  for  me  has  got  the  better  of  his  parti- 
ality to  my  poor  endeavours  to  serve  him,  and  he  approves 
of  my  determination."  The  King,  he  added,  had  decided 
to  appoint  Grenville  in  his  place,  and  had  fixed  on  three 
principles  to  govern  his  reign  : 

1.  Never  to  suffer  to  enter  his  service  any  of  the  Ministers 
who  had  tried  to  fetter  and  enslave  George  II.  ; 

2.  To  collect  every  other  force,  above  all  that  of  Bedford 
and  H.  Fox,  into  his  councils  ; 

3.  To  show  all  proper  countenance  to  every  gentleman 
acting  on  Whig  principles,  and  on  those  principles  only  sup- 
porting his  Government. 

Bute  went  on  :    "  Far  be  it  from  me  to  think  I  am  in  any 
shape  necessary  to  the  King's  Government  or  that  my  place 
cannot  be  even  much  better  supplied  by  any  other  arrange- 
2 


1 8  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

ment,  but  I  do  not  stop  here.  I  am  firmly  of  opinion  that 
my  retirement  will  remove  the  only  unpopular  part  of  Govern- 
ment. ...  I  fondly  hope  I  shall  in  my  retiring  do  my 
royal  master  much  more  service  than  I  could  have  performed 
by  continuing  in  office."     {Bedford  Correspondence,  ii.  223-6.) 

One  takes  leave  of  Bute  after  this  letter  with  more  charity 
than  the  orthodox  historians  sanction.  The  private  life  to 
which  he  retired  yielded  him  more  happiness  than  the  public 
one  he  forsook.  There  is  something  pathetic  in  his  complaint 
that  he  had  found  his  enemies  so  inveterate  and  his  friends 
so  lukewarm  in  political  life  that,  had  he  but  £50  a  year,  he 
would  retire  on  bread  and  water  and  deem  it  luxury  compared 
with  the  sufferings  he  had  found  in  the  political  field.  Nor 
was  his  experience  peculiar.  For  at  least  three  other  Prime 
Ministers  felt  the  same  joy  in  their  escape  from  politics.  Lord 
Shelburne,  after  his  fall  in  1763,  described  himself  as  "  in- 
toxicated with  liberty."  Sir  Robert  Peel,  after  his  final 
defeat  and  fall,  finding  himself  on  July  4,  1846,  alone  with 
Lady  Peel  "  in  the  loveliest  weather,"  was  conscious  of  every 
disposition  to  forgive  his  enemies  for  having  conferred  on  him 
"  the  blessing  of  the  loss  of  power."  {Memoirs,  ii.  310.)  And 
when  Lord  Russell,  defeated  on  his  Reform  Bill  in  the  summer 
of  1866,  quitted  power  for  ever,  his  wife  described  him  as 
"  so  well  and  happy  "  that  her  joy  at  his  release  became 
greater  every  hour  :  there  was  a  "  sense  of  repose  that  could 
hardly  be  described."     (Walpole's  Russell,  ii.  421.) 

But  Bute's  attempt  to  release  his  Royal  master  and  friend 
from  the  shackles  of  party  government,  by  exalting  the  Royal 
prerogative  at  the  cost  of  Parliament,  was  not  an  encouraging 
example  for  successors  who  might  dare  to  venture  on  the  same 
dangerous  path.  Nevertheless  many  since  his  time  have 
tried  to  remove  or  lighten  those  shackles,  and  many  doubtless 
will  so  try  in  the  future. 


CHAPTER    III 

George  III.  and  the  Fourth  Duke  of  Bedford 

Among  the  statesmen  with  whom  George  III.  came  into 
much  interesting  and  instructive  contact  was  John,  fourth 
Duke  of  Bedford,  who  was  forty-one  at  the  King's  accession 
and  who  had  recently  resigned  the  Viceroyalty  of  Ireland. 
He  is  credited  with  the  perhaps  venial  sin  of  having  preferred 
cricket  to  politics,  but  in  any  case  he  played  that  leading  and 
honourable  part  in  the  politics  of  his  day  for  which  cricket  is 
thought  so  admirable  a  preparation.  His  great  merit  lies  in 
his  having  shared  Bute's  endeavour  to  make  peace  with 
France  and  in  having  ultimately  succeeded  in  effecting  it. 
His  wish  for  peace  also  coincided  with  the  King's,  but  it  re- 
quired courage  to  oppose  Pitt,  whose  conduct  of  the  war  had 
been  so  triumphant.  Rigby  wrote  to  the  Duke  on  April  22, 
1761,  begging  him  from  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  to  attend  at 
the  next  day's  Council  on  the  peace  :  "  Nobody  dare  speak 
their  mind  but  yourself,  and  the  country  is  undone  if  you  are 
bullied  out  of  your  peaceable  dispositions  ;  "  the  rest  were 
afraid  of  Pitt,  and  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  wanted  Bedford  to 
stand  the  brunt  of  a  resentment  that  applied  to  both  of  them. 
{Bedford  Correspondence,  iii.  6.) 

The  Family  Compact  between  France  and  Spain,  which 
so  fatally  disturbed  the  negotiations  for  peace  in  1761,  put  an 
end  to  Pitt's  interest  in  effecting  a  peace,  and  on  October  5, 
1761,  he  resigned  office,  because  he  could  not  carry  the  Cabinet 
with  him  in  a  declaration  of  war  against  Spain.  But  the  war 
continued  under  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  who  in  his  turn  re- 
signed on  May  26,  1762.  The  Duke  of  Bedford  succeeded 
Lord  Temple  as  Privy  Seal.  And,  despite  Pitt's  retirement, 
the  war  continued  to  be  marked  by  signal  successes  both 
under  Newcastle  and  under  Lord  Bute,  who  succeeded  him  ; 
but  Bute  at  once  set  the  ship  of  state  full  sail  to  peace,  and  in 


20  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

September  1762  sent  the  Duke  of  Bedford  as  ambassador  to 
Paris.  Peace  had  few  friends  among  the  influential  classes  of 
those  times,  and  the  Duke  incurred  for  his  advocacy  of  it  all 
the  unpopularity  that  befell  Lord  Bute.  He  was  hissed  in 
the  streets  of  London  as  he  went  to  France,  and  the  reproach 
of  the  peace,  of  which  the  preliminaries  were  arranged  on 
November  3,  1762,  and  which  was  signed  on  February  10, 
1763,  clung  to  him  for  years.  So  late  as  Sunday,  June  30, 
1769,  when  he  rode  from  Exeter  to  Honiton,  so  war-intoxi- 
cated still  were  the  people  from  the  successes  of  the  Seven 
Years'  War  that  the  crowd  of  the  Devonshire  townlet  received 
the  Duke  with  groanings  and  hissings  and  cries  of  "the 
Peacemaker "  ;  and,  as  he  rode  on  later,  near  twenty  bull- 
dogs were  set  at  his  horse,  two  of  them  for  a  long  time  being 
under  the  horse's  nose,  whilst  under  a  shower  of  stones  from 
the  mob  "  the  Peacemaker  "  galloped  away.  (Preface,  Bed- 
ford Correspondence,  vol.  iii.  p.  lxxix.) 

In  1761  the  English  fleet,  under  Admiral  Keppel,  had 
captured  the  small  island  of  Belleisle,  which  is  to  the  coast  of 
Normandy  what  the  Isle  of  Wight  is  to  that  of  Dorsetshire. 
In  the  negotiations  for  peace  some  disposition  was  shown  on 
the  English  side  to  retain  Belleisle.  The  Duke,  writing  to 
Lord  Bute,  thus  expressed  his  views  on  the  subject  :  "  Let 
any  Briton  lay  his  hand  upon  his  breast  and  say  whether, 
let  the  distress  of  this  country  be  ever  so  great,  he  could 
put  his  hand  to  the  peace  which  should  cede  the  Isle  of 
Wight  to  France.  If  this  is  the  case,  let  us  do  as  we  would 
be  done  by,  the  most  golden  rule,  as  well  as  what  relates 
to  the  public  as  to  private  life,  and  I  believe  always  ought 
to  be  observed  as  well  in  good  policy  as  in  good  con- 
science." (ib.  iii.  16.)  No  wonder  the  Devonshire  mob 
attacked  him  with  stones  and  bulldogs ! 

It  raises  Lord  Bute  in  one's  esteem  that  he  should  have 
been  the  recipient  of  such  sentiments,  and  it  goes  far  to  explain 
his  unpopularity  among  all  classes.  On  November  25,  1762, 
there  was  a  great  celebration  of  the  arrival  of  the  ratifications 
of  peace,  and  a  large  crowd  filled  the  parks  and  streets  to  see 
the  King's  coach,  and  otherwise  keep  holiday.  But  the  un- 
lucky Bute,  who  had  brought  the  peace  about,  was  "  very 
much  insulted,  hissed  in  a  very  gross  manner,  and  a  little 


George  III.  and  Fourth  Duke  of  Bedford    2 1 

pelted,"  and,  on  his  return  from  the  House,  the  mob  broke 
the  glasses  of  his  chair,  and  put  him  in  danger  of  his  life. 
(ib.  iii.  160,  Rigby  to  the  Duke,  November  26,  1762.) 

Grievances  arose  between  Bute  and  the  Duke  during  the 
embassy  to  Paris,  and  when,  after  sundry  abortive  intrigues 
following  Bute's  resignation,  the  Duke  became  President  of 
the  Council  in  the  Ministry  of  George  Grenville,  there  was  a 
stipulation  with  the  King  that  Bute  should  have  nothing  to 
do  with  the  Government  ;  a  stipulation,  however,  that  does 
not  seem  to  have  been  kept.  In  May  1765  the  Spitalfield 
weavers  rose  in  their  wrath  against  the  lowering  of  the  price 
of  silk  by  foreign  competition,  and  a  Bill  for  protection  against 
it  was  opposed  by  the  Duke  on  the  principles  of  free  trade.  For 
this  he  paid  dearly,  for  it  required  a  force  of  a  hundred  infantry 
and  thirty-six  cavalry  to  protect  Bedford  House  and  possibly 
its  owner  from  the  fury  of  the  mob  ;  and  behind  all  this  the 
Duke  fancied  he  perceived  the  malevolent  hand  of  his  former 
colleague.  Meantime  the  King  was  determined,  if  possible, 
to  rid  himself  of  his  Ministers,  more  especially  of  the  Duke, 
whom  he  could  not  forgive  for  having  voted  for  the  exclusion 
of  the  King's  mother  from  any  share  in  a  possible  Regency. 
The  Duke  of  Cumberland  was  commissioned  to  negotiate  with 
Pitt,  Temple,  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  and  Bute.  Grenville 
and  the  Duke  of  Bedford  confronted  the  King  with  their  sus- 
picions about  Bute  ;  asked  him  his  intentions  about  a  change 
of  Government ;  and  pointed  out  to  him  "  how  very  un- 
faithfully the  conditions  about  Bute  had  been  kept  with 
them."  To  all  which  His  Majesty  vouchsafed  no  satisfactory 
answer. 

Then,  when  the  negotiation  with  Pitt  failed,  as  negotia- 
tions were  apt  to  do  with  that  impracticable  statesman,  the 
King  had  to  suffer  the  humiliation  of  falling  back  on  the  Gren- 
ville Ministers  whom  he  had  tried  to  shake  off.  But  they 
were  now  in  a  position  to  make  terms.  The  King  had  to 
give  his  word  not  to  see  Lord  Bute ;  he  had  to  consent  to 
deprive  his  brother,  Stuart  Mackenzie,  of  the  office  of  Privy 
Seal  for  Scotland,  though  the  King  had  promised  it  him  for 
life.  "  I  will  not  throw  my  kingdom  into  confusion,"  he  said. 
"  You  force  me  to  break  my  word  and  must  be  responsible  for 
the  consequences."     (ib.  iii.  283,  284.) 


22  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

The  Duke  gave  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  a  vivid  account 
of  this  interview  with  the  King  in  a  letter  of  June  13,  1765. 
They  had  asked  the  King  whether  he  had  not  promised  his 
support  and  countenance  to  his  Ministers  ;  whether  that  pro- 
mise had  been  kept  ;  or  whether,  on  the  contrary,  all  their 
most  bitter  enemies  had  not  been  countenanced  by  him  in 
public  ;  whether  Lord  Bute's  representing  his  Ministers  to 
him  in  a  bad  light  by  himself  or  his  emissaries  was  not  an 
interference  in  public  counsels,  and  whether  the  favourite's 
interference  did  not  imperil  the  King's  quiet  and  the  public 
safety.  When  the  King  denied  that  Bute  had  been  consulted, 
the  Duke  prayed  that  his  authority  and  favour  and  counten- 
ance should  go  together,  and  that,  if  that  was  impossible,  he 
should  give  his  authority  to  others.  There  was  no  lack  of 
outspokenness.  Rightly  or  wrongly,  the  King  was  charged 
with  a  breach  of  his  word. 

A  few  days  later  we  find  the  Duke  writing  to  Grenville, 
advocating  a  union  between  him  and  Pitt  as  "  the  only  means 
of  extricating  the  King  and  the  public  out  of  the  labyrinth  of 
national  shame  and  confusion  into  which  the  iniquity  and 
folly  of  Lord  Bute  had  plunged  them,  and  to  which  the  weak- 
ness (to  say  no  more)  of  the  King  had  too  much  contributed. 
To  prevent  this  happening  for  the  future,  a  total  exclusion  of 
Lord  Bute  from  the  King's  counsels  and  presence  for  ever 
seemed  necessary,  and  a  total  removal  of  all  his  friends  from 
their  employments  either  about  the  King's  person  or  else- 
where." (Bedford  Correspondence,  iii.  299.)  But  the  next 
month  (July  1765)  the  King  settled  the  matter  by  dismissing 
the  Grenville  Ministry. 

The  whole  story  throws  into  strong  relief  one  of  the  evils 
which  seems  to  be  hardly  separable  from  constitutional 
monarchy  ;  the  evil  arising  from  the  inevitable  personal  pre- 
ferences of  the  King  in  the  choice  of  his  Ministers  and  the 
support  accorded  to  them.  The  depths  to  which  the  country 
fell  in  consequence  of  so  difficult  a  system  is  admitted  on  the 
unimpeachable  testimony  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford.  A  repub- 
lican form  of  government  has  its  own  peculiar  disadvantages, 
but  if  it  does  not  lend  itself  so  easily,  by  the  influence  of 
personal  favourites,  to  that  flagrant  opposition  between  the 
head  of  the  Executive  and  the  Ministry  which  so  frequently 


George  III.  and  Fourth  Duke  of  Bedford    23 

distracted  the  reign  of  George  III.,  the  advantage  from  this 
aspect  would  seem  to  rest  with  that. form  of  government. 
Yet  the  cynic's  aphorism  must  be  borne  in  mind,  that  the 
chief  excellence  of  any  form  of  government  lies  in  the  possi- 
bility of  another  being  worse. 


CHAPTER   IV 

The  Year  of  Lord  Rockingham 

The  story  George  III.  told  Lord  Ashburton  in  1783  of  the 
dismissal  of  George  Grenville  from  power  is  a  curious  one.  It 
was  that  he  was  induced  to  quarrel  with  Grenville  by  the  Duke 
of  Cumberland ;  that  the  Duke  had  deceived  him  as  to  the 
possibility  of  forming  a  Ministry  with  Pitt,  who  would  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  Duke.  The  Duke  then  introduced 
Lord  Rockingham,  "  who  never  appeared  to  have  a  decided 
opinion  about  anything."  This  step  was  the  only  one  with 
which  the  King  saw  reason  to  reproach  himself  in  the  past. 

It  was  a  great  misfortune  ;  for  had  Pitt  come  into  power 
in  1765  instead  of  a  year  later,  America  might  never  have  been 
lost  to  us.  There  were  some  good  arguments  for  the  intro- 
duction of  the  fatal  Stamp  Act  by  the  Grenville  Government 
on  March  8,  1764,  but  the  disastrous  consequences  in  America 
clearly  indicated  the  necessity  of  its  repeal.  It  is  said  that 
Pitt  forced  this  repeal  upon  Rockingham,  but  in  any  case  its 
repeal  was  a  courageous  line  for  the  Rockingham  Ministry  to 
take,  considering  the  wound  to  the  national  pride  involved 
in  such  an  admission  of  error.  And  had  it  not  been  attended 
by  the  Declaratory  Act,  asserting  the  abstract  right  to  tax 
the  colonies,  all  might  have  been  well.  For  it  was  this  De- 
claratory Act  that  rankled  in  America.  It  was  what,  accord- 
ing to  Lord  George  Germaine,  "  galled  them  the  most." 
(North,  Correspondence,  ii.  131,  February  5,  1778.) 

Lord  Camden  said  that  in  England  "  nearly  everybody 
but  himself  held  the  Declaratory  Act  as  a  sacred  funda- 
mental never  to  be  departed  from."  {Grafton,  216.)  Pitt 
was  one  of  the  minority,  and  it  was  the  Government's 
refusal  to  yield  on  this  point  that  caused  the  negotiations  of 
January  1766  to  add  Pitt  to  the  Ministry  to  break  down. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  Pitt's  inclusion  in  the  Cabinet  would 


The  Year  of  Lord  Rockingham  25 

have  much  strengthened  the  Rockingham  Government,  but 
that  great  statesman's  conduct  throughout  these  months  was 
in  the  highest  degree  regrettable. 

Burke,  then  Lord  Rockingham's  secretary,  wrote  in  later 
life  a  striking  panegyric  of  the  Ministry  of  Lord  Rocking- 
ham, which  lasted  from  July  1765  to  July  1766  :  "  With 
the  Earl  of  Bute  they  had  no  personal  connection,  no 
correspondence  of  councils.  They  neither  courted  him  nor 
persecuted  him.  They  practised  no  corruption,  nor  were 
they  even  suspected  of  it.  They  sold  no  offices.  They 
obtained  no  reversions  or  pensions,  either  coming  in  or 
going  out,  for  themselves,  their  families,  or  their  dependants." 

Liberal  feeling  favoured  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act, 
whilst  Tory  feeling  opposed  it.  But  the  chief  difficulty 
was  with  the  King.  In  a  conversation  with  Lord  Harcourt 
the  King  declared  himself  strongly  in  favour  of  asserting 
the  right  of  Great  Britain  to  impose  the  tax,  and  opposed 
to  its  repeal,  though  he  thought  there  might  be  some  modi- 
fication of  it.  Lord  Harcourt  suggested  that  if  the  King 
would  let  that  opinion  be  known  it  might  prevent  the  repeal, 
if  his  Ministers  pushed  the  measure.  But  to  this  the  King 
seemed  averse,  saying  that  he  would  never  influence  people 
in  their  Parliamentary  opinion,  and  that  he  had  promised 
to  support  his  Ministers.  {Grenville  Papers,  iii.  353,  January 
30,  1766.)  The  same  opinion  he  expressed  to  the  Duke  of 
York,  but  laid  down  the  sound  doctrine  that  "  when  a 
measure  is  once  before  Parliament,  it  must  abide  the  decision 
of  Parliament  "  ;  that  it  would  be  unconstitutional  and 
improper  for  him  to  interfere,  though  his  sentiments  were  as 
strong  as  ever  against  repeal,  (ib.  iii.  371,  February  19.) 
But  he  failed  to  act  up  to  this  high  doctrine.  He  tried 
to  support  and  to  frustrate  his  Ministers  at  the  same  time. 
Rockingham's  remonstrances  with  him  were  both  bold  and 
frequent.  "  The  Ministers  were  disgusted  at  the  notorious 
treachery  of  the  Court,  and  remonstrated  with  the  King 
on  the  behaviour  of  his  servants."  (Walpole,  George  III., 
288.)  And  when,  at  a  critical  period  in  the  passage  of  the 
Bill,  Lord  Strange,  after  an  interview  with  the  King, 
"  trumpeted  all  over  the  town  "  that  the  Government  owed 
their  large  majority  on  a  division  to  the  false  assertions 


26  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

they  had  made  of  the  King's  support  of  repeal,  Rockingham 
extorted  from  his  slippery  master  three  memoranda  in  the 
royal  hand  of  his  submission  to  repeal  as  preferable  to 
the  enforcement  of  the  Stamp  Act.  There  seems  no  doubt 
that  the  Royal  opinion  was  freely  used  to  prevent  the  Bill 
from  passing.  But  when  it  had  passed  the  Commons  in 
March  1766  the  King  told  Lord  Mansfield  that  a  very  im- 
proper use  had  been  made  of  his  name,  as  he  thought  it 
unconstitutional  for  his  name  to  be  mentioned  "  as  a  means 
to  sway  any  man's  opinion  in  any  business  which  was 
before  Parliament."  (April  9,  1766,  Grcnville  Papers,  iii. 
374.)  The  episode  shows  the  practical  impossibility  of  any 
monarch's  playing  that  absolutely  passive  role  which  is 
attributed  to  him  by  the  theory  of  the  Constitution. 

How  difficult  the  situation  was  is  shown  by  the  remark 
of  the  second  Lord  Hardwicke  in  his  "  Memoriall  "  :  "  From 
the  personal  inclination  of  the  King,  and  influenced  by 
Lord  Bute  and  the  Princess  Dowager,  the  followers  of 
Court  favour  went  the  other  way,  and  half  the  Court 
at  least  voted  in  opposition  to  Administration."  (ib.  iii. 
250.) 

Both  sides  made  what  capital  they  could  of  the  King's 
opinion,  in  a  way  which  in  our  freer  age  seems  surprising. 
The  Bill,  having  passed  the  Commons,  was  approaching 
the  more  difficult  passage  of  the  House  of  Lords,  and  this  is 
part  of  the  letter  which  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  saw  fit  to 
write  to  Lord  Rockingham.  He  suggests  that  the  Minister 
should"  humbly  represent  to  His  Majesty  that  if  His  Majesty 
would  be  graciously  pleased  to  signify  to  his  Lords  of  the 
Bedchamber  and  his  servants,  at  the  time  of  his  dressing 
or  after  his  levee,  that  His  Majesty  wished  the  repeal  and 
thought  for  his  service  that  it  should  be  done,  it  would 
certainly  be  carried  without  difficulty."  He  feared  that 
otherwise  the  Opposition  would  be  successful.  And  if 
Rockingham  thought  that  the  writer's  humble  opinion  and 
that  of  Lords  Albemarle,  Bessborough,  and  Grantham  would 
have  any  weight  with  His  Majesty,  they  were  willing  that  it 
should  be  "  submitted  with  the  utmost  deference  to  His 
Majesty's  consideration."  There  was  so  much  industry,  he 
added,  in  propagating  everything  that  made  against  them 


The  Year  of  Lord  Rockingham  27 

that  His  Majesty's  own  inclination  upon  such  an  occasion 
could  not  be  too  well  known,     (ib.  iii.  292.) 

Ultimately  the  Repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  after  the  usual 
difficulties,  received  the  Royal  assent :  a  measure  of  con- 
ciliation which  reflects  lasting  credit  on  the  Rockingham 
Ministry,  and  which  for  the  time  allayed  the  agitation  in 
America.  But  from  the  hour  of  its  repeal,  says  Nicholls,  the 
King  determined  to  get  rid  of  Rockingham.  The  usual 
intriguing  with  different  statesmen  went  on,  and  in  July 
1766  Rockingham  resigned.  He  told  Nicholls  that  the  King 
never  showed  him  such  distinguished  marks  of  kindness  as 
after  he  had  secretly  resolved  to  remove  him.  (Rockingham 
Memoirs,  i.  346.) 

It  is  to  expect  a  miracle  to  expect  a  constitutional 
monarch  to  feel  cordial  friendship  for  a  Minister  to  whose 
policy  he  is  opposed,  or  to  conceal  altogether  feelings  of 
personal  antipathy.  George  strove  his  utmost  to  make 
the  best  of  an  impossible  relationship,  as  his  successors 
have  done  since.  But  the  attempt  told  on  his  mind  long 
before  the  conduct  and  opposition  of  the  Prince  of  Wales 
aggravated  the  trouble.  He  had  more  political  sympathy 
with  George  Grenville  than  with  Rockingham,  but  his 
personal  antipathy  to  him  was  stronger.  "  I  would  rather 
see  the  devil  in  my  closet  than  Mr.  Grenville,"  he  once  said 
to  Col.  Fitzroy  ;  and  to  Lord  Hertford  :  "I  would  sooner 
meet  Grenville  at  the  point  of  the  sword  than  let  him  into 
my  closet."  (ib.  ii.  50.)  Yet  to  Grenville  himself  he  gener- 
ally expressed  the  strongest  attachment. 

No  wonder  that  on  December  13,  1767,  we  find  Lord 
Mansfield  lamenting  with  Grenville  over  "  the  sad  disordered 
state  of  things  in  general,  and  the  languid  turn  of  the  King's 
mind,  who  seemed  indifferent  to  everything,  tired  of  change, 
and  yet  dissatisfied  with  the  Ministers  and  their  Adminis- 
tration." Lord  Mansfield  even  looked  to  Bute  as  a  possible 
saviour  of  a  tottering  State.  He  blamed  Bute  "  for  standing 
still  at  so  critical  a  moment,  after  having  inspired  the  King 
with  general  mistrust  of  everybody,  and  with  ideas  that 
frequent  changes  of  men,  in  order  to  break  all  parties,  was 
the  wisest  plan  of  Government."  For  though  Bute  now 
intermeddled  but  little  with  politics,  he  still  exerted  in- 


28  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

fluence  over  the  royal  mind,  and  therefore  Lord  Mansfield 
found  fault  with  him  for  "  not  interposing  that  influence 
to  put  some  spirit  and  activity  into  a  weak,  insufficient  system, 
which  by  slow  degrees  was  bringing  the  kingdom  to  its  ruin." 
(Grenville  Papers,  iii.  239.)  A  Constitution  which  drove  so 
many  statesmen  to  despair  of  the  State  must  have  had 
more  flecks  in  it  than  were  apparent  to  the  eyes  of  the  King. 


CHAPTER    V 

The  King's  Servants 

The  evolution  of  our  political  ideas  is  in  nothing  shown 
more  clearly  than  in  the  habitual  modern  use  of  the  word 
"  Ministers  " — a  word  that  has  become  universal  in  republics 
as  well  as  in  monarchies.  It  means,  of  course,  a  servant,  but 
no  one  now  would  any  more  talk  of  His  Majesty's  Ministers 
as  his  servants  than  he  would  think  of  calling  his  valet  his 
minister.  The  words  have  come  to  carry  different  associa- 
tions. But  in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries 
the  highest  statesmen  were  but  servants  of  the  King  ;  not 
yet  servants  of  the  nation.  In  writing  to  one  another  they 
more  often  spoke  of  themselves  as  the  King's  servants  than 
as  his  Ministers.  A  meeting  of  the  Cabinet  was  a  meeting 
of  His  Majesty's  servants.  (Grenville  Papers,  iii.  15.) 
Comparing  the  servants  at  Stowe  with  those  of  the  King, 
Augustus  Hervey  wrote  to  Grenville  on  October  12,  1765  : 
"  I  wish  the  master  of  a  certain  very  great  family  had 
the  art  of  conducting  his  as  well ;  then  should  we  see  order 
restored  instead  of  confusion,  respect  instead  of  flattery, 
and  efficiency  in  the  place  of  inability.  If  ever  that  happy 
change  returns,  it  must  be  brought  about  by  yourself,  the 
only  able  upper  Servant  that  can,  in  our  distresses,  direct 
the  whole."     (ib.  iii.  89,  90.) 

The  Prime  Minister,  as  we  should  now  call  him,  was  in 
fact  the  King's  chief  upper  servant — a  sort  of  political 
butler.  And  the  King  not  only  regarded,  but  treated  him 
as  such.  The  King  thus  writes  to  his  chief  servant  on  May 
21,  1765  :  "  Mr.  Grenville,  I  am  surprised  that  you  are  not 
yet  come,  when  you  know  it  was  my  orders  to  be  attended 
this  evening.  I  expect  you  therefore  to  come  the  moment 
you  receive  this."  The  King's  leave  was  necessary  for  the 
shortest  absence  from  town.     On  March  29,  1765,  His  Majesty 


30  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

graciously  gave  Grenville  leave  to  go  out  of  town  for  the 
Easter  holidays  ;  on  June  14  Grenville  "  renewed  his  desire 
to  go  into  the  country,  to  which  the  King  said  :  '  Yes  '  "  ; 
on  June  12  the  Duke  of  Bedford  "  went  into  the  Closet  to 
ask  leave  to  go  out  of  town."  But  the  positions  were  be- 
ginning to  be  reversed,  for  on  May  24,  1765,  we  find  the  King 
himself  asking  leave  of  Grenville  to  go  into  the  country  for 
a  night  for  fresh  air,  and  Grenville  said  :  "  By  all  means," 
and  hoped  it  would  do  him  good.     (Grenville  Papers,  iii.  190.) 

It  must  be  admitted  that  servants  like  Grenville  or  the 
Duke  of  Bedford  often  addressed  their  august  master  in 
language  the  reverse  of  servile  ;  of  this  the  Grenville  Papers 
afford  abundant  evidence  ;  but  the  relationship  itself,  and 
the  insecure  tenure  of  service,  tended  to  be  demoralising 
as  well  as  to  enhance  the  power  of  the  Crown,  as  is  well  shown 
in  a  remark  of  the  Duke  of  Richmond  to  Lord  Rockingham 
in  1781  :  "  When  I  say  the  Ministry  I  mean  the  King  ;  for 
his  servants  are  the  merest  servants  that  ever  were."  (Buck- 
ingham's Court  and  Cabinets  of  George  III.,  i.  23.) 

But  the  position  of  mastery  even  then  was  not  an  easy 
one  for  the  monarch  to  sustain,  and  on  July  10,  1765,  we 
find  him  complaining  to  Grenville  that  when  anything  was 
proposed  to  him  "  it  was  no  longer  as  counsel,  but  what  he 
was  to  obey."  At  that  word  Grenville  started,  and  "  said 
he  did  not  know  how  to  repeat  it ;  that  surely  His  Majesty 
could  not  mean  that  word  to  him,  who  knew  that  there  was 
not  that  power  on  earth  in  whom  His  Majesty  ought  to 
acknowledge  superiority,  but  that  it  was  the  duty  of  his 
servants,  sworn  to  that  purpose,  to  deliver  their  opinions 
to  him  upon  such  things  as  were  expedient  for  his  govern- 
ment."    (Grenville  Papers,  iii.  213.) 

The  Ministers  of  George  III.,  from  habitually  speaking 
of  themselves  as  his  servants,  soon  came  to  regard  them- 
selves as  virtually  his  slaves.  They  stooped  to  language 
of  the  utmost  servility  before  a  majesty  which,  as  the  only 
source  of  place  and  honour,  became  to  them  a  divinity  on 
earth.  The  Royal  Closet,  their  divinity's  shrine,  came  to 
be  viewed  with  such  feelings  of  adoration  that  they  came 
to  speak  of  the  Closet  as  we  now  speak  of  the  Crown.  It 
seemed  indeed  likely  that  "  the  Closet  "  would  have  become 


The  Kings  Servants  31 

a  synonym  for  "  the  Crown,"  or  have  even  superseded  it 
altogether.  Thus  the  political  literature  of  the  time  teems 
with  such  expressions  as  the  following  : 

"  Indeed,  my  Lord,  the  Closet  is  firm,  and  there  is 
nothing  to  fear,"  writes  Lord  Chatham  to  the  Duke  of  Grafton 
on  November  26,  1766.  (Grafton's  Autobiography,  107.) 
"  I  did  not  trouble  the  Closet,"  writes  Lord  Northington 
to  Grafton  on  June  11,  1767.  (ib.  175.)  "  We  lost  a  sup- 
port in  the  Closet  which  we  all  felt,"  writes  Grafton,  (ib.  61.) 
And  again  :  "  The  support  which  has  not  come  cordially 
from  the  Closet."  (ib.  72.)  The  Duke  of  Richmond  writes 
of  "  a  success  in  the  Closet  "  (Rockingham  Memoirs,  ii.  61)  ; 
Lord  Lyttleton  of  "  credit  in  the  Closet  "  (Grenville  Papers, 
iv.  361)  ;  Lord  Bristol  of  "  the  favour  of  the  Closet." 
(Chatham  Correspondence,  iii.  241.)  This  had  become  the 
customary  way  of  speaking  of  the  Crown  or  Monarch. 

The  efforts  of  the  elder  Pitt,  who  was  created  Lord 
Chatham  on  becoming  Privy  Seal  and  chief  Minister  in  1766, 
on  behalf  of  the  freedom  of  election  and  freedom  of  petition 
have  endeared  his  memory  to  all  lovers  of  liberty.  The 
eighteenth  century  produced  no  more  independent  spirit. 
Yet  his  abasement  before  royalty  was  amazing.  Burke, 
writing  of  him  to  Lord  Rockingham  in  1774,  says  :  "  The 
least  peep  into  the  Closet  intoxicates  him,  and  will  to  the  end 
of  his  life."  (Rockingham  Memoirs,  ii.  260.)  In  his  dealings 
with  the  Closet,  the  great  statesman's  contemporaries  found 
a  never-failing  source  of  mirth.  A  wag  declared  that  at  a 
levee  he  would  make  so  low  a  bow  that  from  behind  you 
could  see  the  tip  of  his  hooked  nose  between  his  legs.  The 
reverence  he  displayed  to  royalty  came  within  visible  dis- 
tance of  worship,  and  helps  one  to  understand  the  apotheosis 
of  the  Roman  emperors.  And  in  word  as  well  as  in  action 
this  abasement  before  royalty  showed  itself.  It  was  partly 
a  phrase  of  the  time  to  be  "  laid  at  somebody's  feet."  Thus 
Lord  Tavistock,  writing  to  his  father,  the  Duke  of  Bedford, 
at  Paris,  requests  to  be  laid  by  him  at  the  feet  of  the  Prin- 
cesse  de  Conte.  (Bedford  Correspondence,  iii.  315.)  Three 
times  the  Duke  himself  begged  Lord  Egremont  to  "  lay  him 
at  the  King's  feet  "  (ib.  149,  159,  172),  just  as  on  November 
17,  1757,  as  Lord-Lieutenant  of   Ireland,  he  wrote  to  Pitt, 


32  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

then  Prime  Minister,  entreating  through  the  same  channel 
to  be  laid  at  the  feet  of  George  II.  with  regard  to  resigning 
or  continuing  his  government.  "  I  desire  to  be  laid  at  the 
King's  feet  as  one  that  out  of  office  will  be  as  zealous  as  in," 
wrote  Lord  Northington  to  the  Duke  of  Grafton  on  July  20, 
1767.  (Grafton's  Autobiography,  150.)  And  even  Wilkes 
entreated  the  Duke  "  to  lay  him  with  all  humility  at  the 
King's  feet  "  on  November  1,  1766.     (ib.  193.) 

But  Lord  Chatham  carried  the  use  of  this  conventional 
phrase  to  an  absurdity.  During  nearly  the  whole  time  of 
his  administration  between  1766  and  1770  gout  rendered 
him  incapable  of  political  work,  nor  could  anything  exceed 
the  natural  and  sincere  sympathy  of  the  King  for  his  ailing 
servant,  against  whose  wish  to  resign  he  fought  with  the 
utmost  patience.  To  letters  of  this  sort  from  the  King, 
Lord  Chatham  would  reply,  as  on  June  15,  1767  :  "  Lord 
Chatham  most  humbly  begs  leave  to  lay  himself  with  all 
duty  and  submission  at  the  King's  feet,  utterly  unable  to 
express  what  he  feels  from  the  most  condescending  and 
most  gracious  mark  of  His  Majesty's  infinite  goodness,  in 
deigning  to  bestow  a  thought  upon  the  health  of  a  devoted 
servant.  .  .  .  Under  the  deepest  sense  of  the  grace  and 
consolation  extended  to  him  by  his  most  gracious  royal 
master,  he  prostrates  himself  before  His  Majesty's  good- 
ness."    (Chatham  Correspondence,  iii.  273,  274.) 

On  March  7,  1767,  he  again  writes  :  "  Lord  Chatham 
most  humbly  begs  to  lay  himself  at  the  King's  feet,  and  wants 
words  to  convey  to  His  Majesty  his  duty,  submission,  and 
devotion,  and  how  deeply  he  is  penetrated  with  the  exceeding 
condescension  and  transcending  goodness  of  His  Majesty." 
(ib.  iii.  230.) 

But  even  loyalty  and  gout  together  should  hardly  reduce 
a  man  to  such  language  as  this.  The  letters  in  the  Chatham 
Correspondence  are  couched  in  a  tone  hardly  pardonable  in 
one  poor  mortal  addressing  another.  Surely  the  King  might 
have  inquired  after  the  health  of  his  chief  Minister  and  the 
most  illustrious  statesman  of  his  day  without  any  call  for 
such  extravagant  gratitude.  It  shows  the  advance  then 
making  for  despotism  that  a  statesman  like  Lord  Chatham 
should  have  commonly  begun  his  letters  by  the  offer  of  his 


The  Kings  Servants  33 

body  to  be  kicked  and  trampled  on  by  his  royal  master.  In 
one  of  his  speeches  he  complains  of  the  riches  of  Asia  having 
flooded  the  country  with  Asiatic  luxury  and  Asiatic  prin- 
ciples of  government,  (ib.  iii.  405.)  And  with  justice;  for 
his  own  language  is  the  best  proof  of  the  Asiatic  feeling 
about  monarchy  which  at  the  time  threatened  to  convert 
an  English  constitutional  King  into  an  Oriental  despot. 

It  is  melancholy  to  record  the  King's  later  attitude  to 
Lord  Chatham.  On  August  9,  1775,  he  wrote  to  Lord  North 
that,  though  he  would  not  suffer  Chatham's  family  to  suffer 
for  their  father's  conduct,  he  could  do  nothing  for  them  till 
the  father  was  quite  off  the  public  stage,  lest  his  doing  so 
should  be  ascribed  to  fear.  "  His  political  conduct  the  last 
winter  was  so  abandoned  that  he  must  in  the  eyes  of  the 
dispassionate  have  totally  undone  the  merit  of  his  former 
conduct  ;  "  it  was  absurd  to  expect  any  gratitude  from  the 
King  or  his  family  ;  "  but  when  decrepitude  or  death  puts  an 
end  to  him  as  a  tempest  of  sedition,  I  shall  make  no  difficulty 
of  placing  the  second  son's  name  instead  of  the  father  and 
making  up  the  pension  £3000."  (North,  Correspondence,  i. 
260.)  And  the  King  expressed  himself  as  "  rather  surprised  " 
when  Parliament  unanimously  voted  Chatham  a  public 
funeral  and  a  monument  at  Westminster  Abbey.  He  hoped 
it  was  for  having  roused  the  nation  in  the  last  war ;  other- 
wise, "  this  compliment,  if  paid  to  his  general  conduct,  was 
rather  an  offensive  measure  to  himself  personally."  (May 
12,  1778,  ib.  ii.  184.) 

To  some  extent  the  expressions  varied  with  the  mood  of 
the  writer,  as  in  the  correspondence  between  the  King  and 
Lord  North  after  the  latter's  resignation  in  March  1782.  The 
King  wrote  on  April  18  to  complain  of  the  Secret  Service 
account -books  not  having  been  made  up  beyond  April  5.  It 
was  "  the  most  shameful  piece  of  neglect  I  ever  knew.  No 
business  can  ever  be  admitted  as  an  excuse  for  not  doing 
that."  He  also  expressed  surprise  at  the  "  immense  expense 
of  the  General  Election  "  of  1780.  Lord  North  answered  like 
a  whipped  schoolboy.  "  Lord  North,  with  a  heart  full  of  the 
deepest  affliction  at  having  incurred  His  Majesty's  displeasure, 
humbly  throws  himself  at  His  Majesty's  feet,  and  implores  his 
attention  to  a  few  words  that  he  presumes  to  offer  in  ex- 
3 


34  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

planation  of  the  delay  of  the  accounts,  etc."  The  King  was 
softened ;  Lord  North  could  not  be  surprised  "  that  a  mind 
truly  tore  to  pieces  should  make  me  less  attentive  to  my  ex- 
pressions." But  there  was  no  more  prostration  after  this 
episode.  On  November  4,  1782,  it  is  "  Lord  North  has  the 
honour  of  informing  His  Majesty,  etc."  (Correspondence,  ii. 
421-7,  433.) 

Sir  George  Rose,  the  great  friend  of  the  younger  Pitt,  felt 
such  indignation  at  the  substitution  of  Addington  for  Pitt  as 
Prime  Minister  in  1801  that  he  told  Pitt  on  February  5  that 
in  his  opinion  Addington  "  should  have  thrown  himself  at  the 
King's  feet  and  assured  him  of  the  absolute  impossibility  of 
his  undertaking  the  government."  And  again  on  February 
18  he  repeated  the  phrase  as  expressive  of  the  duty  clearly 
incumbent  on  the  man  whom  his  contemporaries,  from  his 
father's  calling,  nicknamed  the  "  Doctor."  (Rose's  Diaries, 
i.  292,  309.) 

A  letter  from  Lord  Shelburne  to  the  King,  dated  April  16, 
1782,  shows  a  tendency  to  break  away  from  this  epistolary 
servility  ;  for  it  begins  with  "  Sir,"  and  ends  "  with  the  most 
respectful  attachment  Your  Majesty's  dutiful  and  devoted 
servant."  (Fitzmaurice,  ii.  108.)  And  none  of  the  letters 
of  William  Pitt  to  the  King,  printed  in  the  Appendices  of 
Stanhope's  Life  of  Pitt,  show  any  trace  of  his  father's  abase- 
ment. But  Burke,  in  writing  to  Pitt  on  August  31,  1794, 
to  thank  the  King  for  a  liberal  gift  of  money  from  the  Civil 
List,  begged  him  "  to  be  so  kind  as  to  lay  him  with  all  possible 
humility,  duty,  and  gratitude  at  His  Majesty's  feet."  (Stan- 
hope, ii.  246.)  And  Pitt,  in  a  letter  to  the  King  of  January 
22,  1787,  conveyed  the  Bishop  of  Peterborough's  request  that 
the  offer  of  the  Deanery  of  St.  Paul's  "  might  be  laid  at  His 
Majesty's  feet  with  every  expression  of  duty  and  gratitude." 
(ib.  Appendix  XX.) 

The  phrase  lingered  into  the  next  century  and  the  next 
reign ;  as  when  Canning,  refusing  to  join  Lord  Liverpool's 
Government,  begged  that  Minister  to  "  lay  at  the  feet  of  the 
Prince  Regent  his  humble  and  earnest  prayer  to  be  excused 
from  accepting  an  office  which  by  a  sacrifice  of  public 
character  must  render  him  inefficient  for  the  service  of  His 
Royal  Highness'  Government."    (Bagot's  Canning,  i,  368, 


The  King's  Servants  35 

March  18,  1812.)  Again,  we  find  Canning  writing  to  George 
IV.  in  December  1820  :  "  When  in  the  month  of  June  ...  I 
laid  at  Your  Majesty's  feet  the  tender  of  my  resignation  "  ; 
and  on  June  10,  1822,  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  writing  to  the 
same  master,  alludes  to  circumstances  which  obliged  him  to 
forego  the  pleasure,  which  had  always  been  so  acceptable  to 
his  feelings,  of  throwing  himself  at  His  Majesty's  feet.  But 
the  Duke  did  not  always  give  himself  this  pleasure  ;  his 
dispatches  generally  expressed  nothing  more  than  his  duty  as 
a  subject  and  his  devotion  as  a  servant.  And  so  it  was  with 
the  Ministers  of  William  IV.  It  was  in  his  reign  that  it  seems 
first  to  have  dawned  on  Ministers  to  consider  themselves 
rather  the  servants  of  the  House  of  Commons  or  of  the  nation 
than  of  the  Crown.  (Greville,  iii.  293,  371.)  So  that  the 
evolution  seems  clear  from  the  position  of  semi-slaves,  pros- 
trate at  the  King's  feet,  to  that  of  Ministers  on  equal  terms 
with  him,  or  even  of  something  like  mastery  over  him. 

As  indicative  of  the  change  of  tone  that  has  occurred  be- 
tween those  times  and  our  own  may  be  noticed  the  fact  that 
in  Queen  Victoria's  published  Letters  there  is  only  one  refer- 
ence to  the  Closet  (ii.  381) ;  whilst  the  other  phrase  became 
so  rare  as  to  seem  almost  singular.  Thus  Lord  Canning,  on 
December  24,  1857,  begged  leave  to  lay  at  Her  Majesty's 
feet  the  assurance  of  his  dutiful  attachment  (Queen's  Letters, 
iii.  329) ;  Lord  Ellenborough,  on  May  10,  1858,  laid  his  resig- 
nation at  Her  Majesty's  feet  (ib.  iii.  359) ;  and  in  1852  Mr. 
Disraeli,  after  the  defeat  of  Lord  Derby's  first  Government 
in  1852,  laid  at  Her  Majesty's  feet  his  dutiful  and  grateful 
sense  of  her  generous  and  indulgent  kindness  to  himself  as 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  ;  adding,  as  regards  Prince 
Albert,  that  he  would  ever  remember  with  interest  and  ad- 
miration "the  princely  mind  in  the  princely  person."  (Life, 
iii.  450.)  But  such  phraseology  became  exceptional.  With 
a  loyalty  to  the  Queen  quite  as  sincere  as  his  rival's,  Mr.  Glad- 
stone used  the  simpler  language  which  was  better  suited  to 
the  changed  atmosphere  of  the  world. 


CHAPTER    VI 

Monarchy  or  Republic 

A  letter  of  Lord  Shelburne,  dated  May  18,  1770,  accused 
the  Government  of  wishing  to  establish  a  Royal  despotism  at 
home  and  in  America,  and  to  silence  free  discussion  in  Parlia- 
ment. Nor  was  this  an  idle  fear  on  the  part  of  the  Liberal 
Opposition.  For  in  1773  we  find  Lord  North  remonstrating 
against  the  large  number  of  military  preferments  which  the 
King  himself  bestowed  ;  a  practice  which,  he  said,  loosened 
Parliamentary  discipline,  as  the  officers  ceased  to  look  up  to 
the  Government,  nor  could  the  head  of  it  gain  the  attachment 
of  the  country  gentlemen  "  when  they  found  he  had  not  the 
credit  to  provide  for  their  sons  and  relations."  "  What," 
he  added,  "  was  not  to  be  apprehended  from  the  King's 
assiduity  in  attaching  the  army  personally  to  himself  ?  " 
(Walpole's  Last  Journals,  i.  172.) 

The  outbreak  of  the  American  War  naturally  intensified 
this  fear,  which  greatly  affected  the  politics  of  those  years. 

"  I  had  as  little  doubt,"  wrote  Horace  Walpole,  "  but  if 
the  conquest  of  America  should  be  achieved,  the  moment  of 
the  victorious  army's  return  would  be  that  of  the  destruction 
of  our  liberties.  Would  that  army,  had  it  returned  victorious, 
have  hesitated  to  make  the  King  as  absolute  as  they  had 
made  him  in  America  ?  .  .  .  An  invasion  from  France  would 
not  be  so  fatal  as  the  return  of  such  an  army."  (ib.  ii. 
147.)  "  I  had  long  dreaded,"  he  says  again,  "  lest  success 
and  despair  should  infuse  resolution  enough  into  the  King 
to  endeavour  to  establish  absolute  power  by  the  army."  (ib. 
ii.  432.)  "  Had  the  American  War  been  prosperous,  I  have 
no  doubt  but  the  power  of  the  Crown  would  have  swelled 
to  most  dangerous  heights."  (ib.  ii.  521.)  The  Duke  of 
Grafton  testifies  to  the  fears  entertained  by  Fox  and  himself 

that  military  success  in  America  would  result  in  a  military 

36 


Monarchy  or  Republic  37 

occupation  of  the  country,  and  the  consequent  destruction 
of  the  Constitution  and  liberty  in  Great  Britain.  (Auto- 
biography, 277.) 

"  Who  would  have  imagined,"  wrote  Lord  Camden  to  the 
Duke  on  January  4,  1776,  "  that  Ministers  could  have  become 
popular  by  forcing  this  country  into  a  destructive  war,  and 
advancing  the  power  of  the  Crown  to  a  state  of  despotism  ; 
and  yet,  that  is  the  fact."     (ib.  279.) 

The  Duke  of  Richmond  on  one  occasion  spoke  of  the 
"  nation  as  so  sold  to  the  Crown  that  nothing  but  the  King's 
goodness  prevented  our  being  absolute  slaves."  (Walpole's 
Last  Journals,  i.  585.)  Lord  Dartmouth  declared  that  "  the 
Tories  would  not  be  content  but  with  absolute  power  for  the 
Crown."     (ib.  ii.  22.) 

This  aspect  of  the  American  War  accounts  for  such  facts 
in  the  attitude  of  the  Opposition  as  the  Duke  of  Portland's 
gloating  over  the  loss  of  a  warship  to  America  (Sir  G.  Elliot's 
Life,  i.  74) ;    or  Fox's  letter  to  Rockingham  on  October  13, 

1776,  in  which  he  referred  to  the  King's  troops  having  landed 
at  Long  Island  and  beaten  the  colonists  near  Brooklyn  as 
"  terrible  news  "  ;  or  the  Duke  of  Richmond's  sailing  in  a 
yacht,  though  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Sussex,  through  the  fleet 
in  the  presence  of  the  King,  with  the  American  colours  at  the 
masthead.     (Greville  Memoirs,  iii.  133.) 

Many  facts  of  the  time  sent  to  justify  this  fear  of  the 
King  becoming  a  despot.  The  clergy,  according  to  Walpole, 
"  panted  for  arbitrary  power  "  being  vested  in  the  Crown. 
(Last  Journals,  ii.  228.)  The  Court  had  on  its  side,  he  says, 
the  three  great  bodies  of  the  clergy,  the  army,  and  the  law. 
The  Fast  Sermons  in  December  1776  "  let  loose  all  the  zeal 
of  the  clergy,"  the  pulpits  resounding  with  doctrines  sub- 
versive of  all  the  principles  of  the  Revolution  of  1688,  and 
the  magnificent  Markham,  Archbishop  of  York,  particularly 
distinguishing  himself  by  a  sermon  preached  before  the 
Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  on  February  21, 

1777.  For  the  sentiments  of  this  sermon  he  was  denounced 
in  the  Lords  by  Lord  Shelburne,  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  and 
Lord  Chatham.  Writers  who  revived  the  obsolete  doctrines 
of  passive  obedience  or  non-resistance  were  encouraged  or 
employed   by  Lord    Mansfield,     (ib.  ii.   594.)     The    talk   of 


38  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

courtiers  was  naturally  in  favour  of  arbitrary  power,  whilst  it 
was  advocated  in  public  discussion  by  men  in  the  position  of 
Lord  Huntingdon,  and  of  Barnard,  Dean  of  Derry  ;  the  latter 
receiving  an  Irish  bishopric  for  so  doing  in  1780.  In  this 
welter  of  sycophancy,  clerical  and  other,  it  is  pleasant  to 
read  of  Keppel,  Bishop  of  Exeter  and  Dean  of  Windsor, 
thanking  God  on  his  deathbed  (1777)  that  he  had  never 
given  a  vote  for  the  shedding  of  American  blood.  (Last 
Journals,  ii.  86.) 

The  King's  aim,  according  to  Walpole,  was  "  to  extend 
his  prerogative  on  all  occasions,  great  and  small  "  (ib.  ii.  113), 
and  it  went  so  far  that  after  General  Harvey's  death  he 
"  directed  everything  in  the  army  himself,  and  allowed 
General  Amherst  no  power."     (ib.  ii.  168.) 

Thus  there  was  abundant  justification  for  Dunning's 
famous  motion,  which  was  carried  even  in  that  Tory  Parlia- 
ment by  a  majority  of  eighteen  ;  that  the  influence  of  the 
Crown  had  increased,  was  increasing,  and  ought  to  be 
diminished.  (April  1780.)  Unfortunately,  his  proposal  of  a 
few  weeks  later  of  an  address  to  the  King  not  to  prorogue 
Parliament  till  measures  had  been  taken  to  diminish  this 
influence  was  defeated  by  a  majority  of  fifty-one.  In  1783, 
the  year  of  his  death,  Dunning  became  Lord  Ashburton,  but 
the  strange  thing  about  him  is,  that  despite  his  resolutions 
against  the  Crown  and  his  opposition  to  the  American  War, 
"  the  Greatest  Personage  in  the  kingdom  said  he  never  knew 
friendship  till  he  knew  Dunning."  (Fitzmaurice's  Shelburne, 
ii.  320.) 

And  in  the  political  demi-world  there  was  a  similar  stir 
against  the  monarchy.  In  June  1774,  when  the  excitement 
against  the  Quebec  Bill  was  at  its  height,  the  mob  became 
most  abusive.  As  the  King  went  to  the  House,  some 
held  up  their  fists  at  him  and  cried  out :  "  Remember 
Charles  I.  Remember  James  II."  (Walpole's  Last  Journals, 
ii.  359.) 

At  the  close  of  the  American  War,  in  which,  as  Shelburne 
once  said,  the  King  lost  the  nation  as  many  provinces  as  he 
had  children,  the  Duke  of  Grafton  spoke  of  "  the  influence  of 
the  Crown  having  increased  beyond  all  manner  of  constitu- 
tional reckoning,"  and  of  the  Constitution  as  "  shaken  on 


Monarchy  or  Republic  39 

every  side  to   its   very  foundation."     (Autobiography,   311, 
355.) 

The  French  War,  which  began  in  1793  and  lasted,  with  an 
interlude  of  fourteen  months,  for  twenty-two  years,  still 
further  strengthened  this  tendency,  which  so  many  wars 
have  shown,  to  make  the  Executive  more  powerful  ;  so  that 
the  Duke  of  Grafton,  writing  his  autobiography  in  1804, 
when  the  state  of  the  country  seemed  to  him  more  gloomy 
and  alarming  than  he  had  ever  known  it,  declared  that  the 
influence  of  the  Crown,  all-powerful  as  it  was  in  17G2,  had 
not  then  mounted  to  the  height  it  had  reached  at  the  later 
date.     (23.) 

As  one  extreme  provokes  its  opposite,  this  tendency 
naturally  produced  a  democratic  reaction,  so  that  the  Tory 
party  came  to  speak  of  their  Liberal  opponents  as  the 
"  republican  party  "  or  "  faction."  (Lord  Colchester's  Diary,  i. 
22,  23.) 

A  letter  from  Fox  to  his  nephew  in  1796  shows  how  strong 
this  feeling  was.  "  It  is  a  duty  to  brave  all  calumny  that 
will  be  thrown  on  us,  on  account  of  the  countenance  which  we 
shall  be  represented  as  giving  to  the  Corresponding  Society 
and  others  who  are  supposed  to  wish  the  overthrow  of  the 
monarchy.  My  own  view  of  things  is,  I  own,  very  gloomy, 
and  I  am  convinced  that  in  a  very  few  years  this  Government 
will  become  completely  absolute,  or  that  confusion  will  come, 
of  a  nature  almost  as  much  to  be  deprecated  as  despotism 
itself."  Again — "  I  think  that  we  ought  to  go  further  towards 
agreement  with  the  democrats  than  at  any  former  period. 
We,  as  a  party,  can  do  nothing,  and  the  contest  must  be 
between  the  Court  and  the  democrats." 

Republicanism  in  England  existed  long  before  the  French 
Revolution,  but  this  event  spread  the  infection  widely  over 
the  country.  Even  the  ranks  of  the  aristocracy  felt  its 
influence  :  as  in  the  case  of  the  third  Lord  Stanhope,  who 
was  more  advanced  than  even  his  father,  also  a  "  determined 
republican."  At  the  French  Revolution,  he  "  laid  aside  all 
external  ornaments  of  the  peerage."  ( Walpole's  Last  Journals, 
i.  400.)  Lord  Holland  described  him  as  "the  truest  Jacobin 
he  ever  knew,"  denouncing  everything,  "not  merely  the 
monarchy,    but    the    clergy    and    nobility,    and    hereditary 


40  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

property  in  land."  (Whig  Memoirs,  ii.  35.)  Lord  Stan- 
hope is  more  justly  remembered  for  his  inventions ; 
among  others,  of  the  first  steam  carriage  in  1790. 

Thomas  Hollis,  who  died  at  the  end  of  1773,  was  famous 
as  the  most  bigoted  of  all  republicans  in  that  he  was  even 
"  unwilling  to  converse  with  men  of  other  principles." 
(Walpole's  Last  Journals,  i.  274.) 

The  Association  for  Parliamentary  reform,  called  the 
Friends  of  the  People,  resulted  from  an  after-dinner  con- 
versation at  Lord  Porchester's.  His  lordship,  though  active 
in  promoting  the  association,  refused  to  sign  it  as  not  re- 
publican enough  for  his  tastes.  Then  after  arraigning  the 
same  association  as  seditious  a  few  months  later,  he  was  made 
the  first  Earl  of  Carnarvon  (July  1793)  (ib.  i.  13) ;  but,  as 
the  war  went  on,  and  Government — in  the  hands  of  Lord 
Liverpool  or  Lord  Sidmouth — became  more  and  more  re- 
pressive of  popular  liberties,  the  very  word  republic  came, 
in  the  fashionable  world,  to  be  regarded  as  "an  indecent 
word,  unfit  to  be  mentioned  in  company."  (Holland, 
Further  Whig  Memoirs,  186.) 

The  King,  "  long  the  most  popular  man  in  his  dominion, 
derived  fresh  favour  with  the  public  from  his  age  and  in- 
firmities." (Holland,  Whig  Memoirs,  ii.  226.)  At  the 
election  of  1807  cries  of  the  "  Good  old  King  "  mingled  with 
the  cry  of  "  No  Popery  "  as  a  reason  for  voting  for  the 
Tories,     (ib.  216.) 

The  general  exaggeration  of  loyalty  was  reflected  in 
Parliament  itself.  When  the  King  dismissed  the  Ministry 
of  Lord  Grenville  on  their  refusal  to  pledge  themselves  not 
to  raise  the  Catholic  question,  and  the  Duke  of  Portland 
came  in  at  the  head  of  a  Tory  ministry  (April  25,  1807),  a 
resolution  was  proposed  to  make  any  such  pledge  on  the 
part  of  Ministers  contrary  to  their  first  duties.  "  Canning, 
after  the  most  fulsome  adulation  to  the  King,  said  that  he 
had  made  up  his  mind — when  the  Catholic  Bill  was  first 
mentioned — to  vote  for  it,  if  the  King  was  for  it,  and  against 
it,  if  the  King  was  against  it."  (Romilly's  Memoirs,  ii.  200.) 
Can  anything  more  abject  be  conceived  ?  and  in  the  debate 
on  the  subject,  both  in  the  Lords  and  Commons,  of  April  13, 
Romilly  says  that  "  the  grossest  adulation  to  the  King  " 


Monarchy  or  Republic  41 

was  shown,  and  the  most  servile  doctrines  maintained. 
(ib.  203.)  The  country  was  not  far  from  a  despotism  over 
men's  minds  such  as  marked  the  days  of  the  early  Roman 
Empire,  yet  a  great  dread  prevailed  of  a  coming  Republic  ; 
so  difficult  is  it  for  contemporaries  to  judge  rightly  of  the 
real  political  tendencies  of  their  time. 


CHAPTER   VII 
George  III.  and  Lord  North 


George  III.  must  have  led  a  dog's  life,  between  Ministers 
whom  he  disliked  only  less  than  they  disliked  one  another, 
and  a  budding  family,  of  whom  the  eldest,  the  future  king, 
set  no  shining  example  to  the  other  twelve. 

Walpole  describes  how  it  made  him  smile  to  think  that 
"  in  the  palace  of  piety  and  pride  His  Royal  Highness  (the 
growing  George  IV.)  had  learnt  nothing  but  the  dialect  of 
footmen  and  grooms  "  {Last  Journals,  ii.  405) ;  but  it  can 
hardly  have  made  the  King  smile.  In  May  1781  the  Prince 
"  drunk  more  publicly  in  the  Drawing-room,  and  talked 
there  irreligiously  and  indecently  in  the  openest  manner.  .  .  . 
He  passed  the  nights  in  the  lowest  debaucheries,  whilst  both 
he  and  his  brother  of  Cumberland  would  talk  of  the  King 
'  in  the  grossest  manner,  even  in  his  hearing.'  "     (ib.  ii.  360.) 

All  this  must  have  been  deeply  galling  to  a  father  who, 
like  George  III.,  could  justly  boast  and  thank  Heaven  that 
his  own  "  morals  and  course  of  life  had  but  little  resembled 
those  too  prevalent  in  the  present  age  "  (December  10,  1880, 
North,  Letters,  ii.  343) ;  and  who,  when  he  had  to  ask  Lord 
North  to  pay  £5000  to  Mrs.  Robertson,  the  actress,  for  the 
non-publication  of  the  letters  of  his  son  of  seventeen,  could 
honestly  say  :  "I  am  happy  to  be  able  to  say  that  I  never 
was  personally  engaged  in  such  a  transaction,  which  perhaps 
makes  me  feel  this  the  stronger."  (August  28,  1781, 
ib.  ii.  382.) 

And  to  the  domestic  trouble  was  added  the  political 
trouble,  the  everlasting  conflict  with  the  Constitution.  Even 
if  he  undermined  the  Constitution,  he  loved  it.  His  regret 
was  that  North  had  not  some  degree  of  his  own  enthusiasm 


George  III.  and  Lord  North  43 

for  "  the  beauty,  excellence,  and  perfection  of  the  British 
Constitution  as  by  law  established."  (November  14,  1778, 
ib.  ii.  215.)  North  should  see  that  there  "  at  least  was  one 
person  willing  to  preserve  unspoiled  the  most  beautiful  com- 
bination that  ever  was  framed."  (April  11,  1780,  ib.  ii.  314.) 
And  with  what  pluck  he  took  arms  against  a  sea  of  troubles  ! 
When  he  and  his  Minister  had  almost  driven  the  ship  of 
State  upon  the  rocks,  he  could  still  inspire  his  despondent 
servant  with  courage  :  "  I  am  not  surprised  Lord  North 
feels  disgusted  at  the  fatigue  he  undergoes  ;  he  may  be 
certain  I  feel  my  task  as  unpleasant  as  he  can  possibly  feel 
his,  but  both  of  us  are  in  trammels,  and  it  is  our  duty  to 
continue."     (March  27,  1781,  ib.  ii.  365.) 

So  they  went  on  through  the  American  War,  like  galley 
slaves  chained  to  their  oars,  the  Minister  year  after  year 
entreating  to  be  released,  and  the  King  as  pertinaciously 
refusing  to  release  him. 

Yet  it  had  been  a  happy  day  for  George  III.  when  on  the 
resignation,  or,  as  the  King  always  called  it,  the  desertion  of 
the  Duke  of  Grafton  in  1770,  Lord  North  had  come  to  his  assist- 
ance and  taken  over  the  government  of  the  country.  The 
King  had  shaken  off  the  Whigs,  and  could  henceforth  indulge 
his  masterful  spirit  with  the  help  of  a  character  weaker  than 
his  own.  The  supposed  constitutional  king  controlled  the 
minutest  detail  of  government,  military,  civil,  and  ecclesi- 
astical, with  an  assertion  of  personal  sovereignty  that  no 
absolute  monarch  could  have  surpassed.  How  keenly 
he  watched  men's  conduct  in  Parliament,  and  with  what  a 
rod  he  ruled  his  Tory  supporters  !  Just  as  on  November  10, 
1766,  he  had  to  remind  the  Duke  of  Grafton  of  the  practice 
of  his  predecessors  always  to  send  him  a  list  of  the  peers 
present  in  the  House  the  preceding  day  (Grafton's  Auto- 
biography, 130),  so  he  instructed  Lord  North  to  see  that  his 
supporters  attended  at  debates  more  regularly,  and  spoke 
more  often.  "  I  have  a  right  to  expect,"  he  writes  (February 
26,  1773),  "  a  hearty  support  from  every  one  in  my  service, 
and  shall  remember  defaulters,"  in  reference  to  their  action 
on  the  Royal  Marriage  Bill ;  he  would  like  to  have  a  list  of 
his  supporters  who  "  went  away  and  of  those  that  deserted 
to  the  minority ;   that  would  be  a  rule  for  my  conduct  in 


44  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

the  Drawing-room  to-morrow."  (March  14,  1772,  North, 
Letters,  i.  91,  97.)  On  February  16,  1773,  he  expresses  him- 
self as  much  pleased  at  the  very  handsome  majority  of  the 
night  before  :  "I  am  anxious  to  know  how  people  voted 
on  this  occasion,  therefore  wish  to  see  you  this  evening 
at  nine,  that  I  may  have  an  explanation  of  what  passed  ; 
but  should  there  be  defaulters,  it  will  be  highly  necessary 
to  punish  them."  (ib.  i.  123.)  Not  much  more  liberty 
of  thought  under  such  a  system  than  at  Rome  under 
Tiberius  ! 

As  for  those  who  openly  differed  from  him,  the  avowed 
Liberal  Opposition,  they  were  merely  "  a  desperate  faction." 
(February  24,  1777.)  Any  one  who  did  not  share  his  own 
views  against  granting  independence  to  America  did  not 
deserve  to  be  a  member  of  the  community.  (June  13,  1781, 
ib.  ii.  377.)  Any  one  who  supported  General  Conway's 
motion  for  an  inquiry  into  the  conduct  of  the  war  must  have 
"  lost  the  feelings  of  Englishmen  "  ;  though  the  majority 
which  had  not  lost  such  feelings  only  amounted  to  twenty- 
two.     (February  26,  1782,  ib.  ii.  409.) 

But,  at  least,  the  personal  relations  between  the  King 
and  his  chief  servant  were  satisfactory ;  for  the  two  were 
more  alike  in  many  points  of  character  than  they  were  even 
in  face.  "  You  are  my  sheet  anchor,"  writes  the  King,  "  and 
your  ease  and  comfort  I  shall  in  the  whole  transaction  try 
to  secure."  (November  7,  1775,  ib.  i.  286.)  Again:  "The 
affectionate  regard  I  have  for  you  arises  from  the  very 
handsome  conduct  you  have  held  when  others  shamefully 
deserted  my  service."  (ib.  i.  287.)  "  I  ever  wish  for  your 
ease  and  every  other  comfort  that  can  befall  you,  and  no  one 
can  more  sincerely  interest  himself  than  I  do  in  whatever 
affects  you."  (May  9,  1777,  ib.  ii.  68.)  "  You  will  never 
find  any  occasion  of  providing  for  your  children  that  I  should 
not  be  more  happy  if  possible  than  yourself  to  provide  for 
them.  It  has  not  been  my  fate  in  general  to  be  well  served  ; 
by  you  I  have,  and  therefore  cannot  forget  it."  (March  31, 
1776,  ib.  ii.  17.) 

With  the  encouragement  and  remonstrance  of  a  personal 
friend  the  King  helped  his  luckless  Minister  to  fight  against 
the  giants  of  indecision  and  despondency.     And  truly  there 


George  III.  and  Lord  North  45 

was  need  of  it  in  those  times,  when  Lord  Chatham  could 
write  to  Calcraft  on  November  28,  1770  he  thought  all  was 
ruined,  and  that  he  was  determined  to  be  found  at  his  post 
when  destruction  befell  them  ;  that  the  times  were  "  pollution 
in  their  very  quintessence."  (Chatham  Correspondence,  iv. 
32.)  Or  again  when  he  could  write  to  Calcraft :  "  If  you 
leave  England  for  a  time  you  are  sure  of  a  better  air  ;  and 
pretty  sure  not  to  meet  a  more  corrupted  people  or  more 
contemptible  country."  (August  17,  1772,  ib.  iv.  224.) 
But  the  King  said  truly  of  himself  that  he  "  never  inclined 
to  dejection  "  (December  10,  1770),  and  later,  when  things 
were  looking  their  darkest,  he  could  still  write  to  his  unhappy 
servant :  "  That  Lord  North  should  feel  a  little  languid  on 
the  approach  of  the  meeting  of  Parliament  is  not  surprising ; 
it  is  far  from  being  a  pleasant  sensation  even  to  me." 
(October  25,  1780,  ib.  ii.  337.)  He  remonstrates  with  him 
for  making  plans  with  others  about  employments  without 
first  consulting  his  master  :  "  Here  you  can  repose  your 
indigested  thoughts  more  safely  in  the  breast  of  one  who  has 
ever  treated  you  more  as  his  friend  than  Minister."  (June  2, 
1778,  ib.  ii.  200.)  When  North  wrote  that  he  was  "  conscious 
and  certain  that  he  had  neither  the  authority  nor  the  abilities 
requisite  for  the  conduct  of  affairs,"  the  King  flared  up  at 
the  expression  "  authority,"  for  since  Lord  North  had  so 
handsomely  devoted  himself  on  the  retreat  of  the  Duke  of 
Grafton,  George  had  never  had  a  political  thought  he  had 
not  communicated  to  his  friend,  had  accepted  plans  highly 
displeasing  to  himself,  because  he  had  thought  they  would 
assist  his  Minister,  and  had  yielded  to  measures  he  did  not 
quite  approve.     (November  14,  1778,  ib.  ii.  215.) 

And  this  beautiful  state  of  friendship  extended  from 
politics  to  finance.  Both  King  and  Minister  fell  dreadfully 
into  debt,  and  helped  themselves  out  of  it  at  the  cost  of  the 
country  they  both  loved  so  well.  On  his  accession,  the  King 
had  surrendered  the  hereditary  revenues  of  the  Crown  in 
exchange  for  a  Civil  List  of  £800,000  a  year  for  his  life.  In 
1769  it  was  complained  that  this  was  not  enough  ;  in  1777 
there  was  a  debt  of  over  £600,000,  which  Parliament  was  asked 
to  pay,  and  which  it  did  pay.  It  also  agreed  to  raise  the 
King's  annual  allowance  by  £100,000  a  year ;    for  it  was  a 


46  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

docile  majority,  just  there  to  register  the  King's  wishes, 
and  to  repay  some  of  the  debt  incurred  in  buying  their  seats 
and  their  votes.  "  If  the  Duke  of  Northumberland,"  wrote 
the  King  on  October  11, 1779,  "  requires  some  gold  pills  for  the 
election,  it  would  be  wrong  not  to  give  him  some  assistance." 
(October  16,  1779,  Chatham  Correspondence,  ii.  286.)  Among 
the  first  things  the  King  did  with  this  addition  to  his  banking 
account  was  to  write  a  very  nice  letter  to  his  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  insisting  on  knowing  whether  £12,000  or  £15,000 
would  help  to  set  North's  affairs  in  order  ;?|  for  "  if  it  will, 
nay,  if  £20,000  is  necessary,  I  am  resolved  you  shall  have 
no  other  concerned  in  freeing  you  than  myself."  Of  all  the 
letters  he  had  ever  written  to  North  this  was  the  one  that  had 
given  him  the  greatest  pleasure  ;  he  wanted  no  other  return 
than  North's  conviction  that  the  King  loved  him  as  much  as 
a  man  of  worth  as  he  esteemed  him  as  a  Minister.  This 
mark  of  his  affection  was  the  only  one  he  had  ever  been  able 
to  perform.  (September  19,  1777,  ib.  ii.  83.)  No  wonder 
the  King  loved  the  British  Constitution  which  permitted  so 
neat  an  J arrangement.  Under  this  "  gold  pill  "  system  the 
King  and  his  Chancellor,  and  their  bought  Parliamentary 
majority,  could  play  comfortably  into  one  another's  hands. 
In  a  republic  it  would  have  been  called  corruption  ;  but  these 
things  were  done  in  a  monarchy. 

The  system  continued  unabashed.  On  December  22, 
1788,  Sir  William  Young,  writing  to  Lord  Buckingham,  spoke 
of  the  "  active  spirit  of  subornation  which  stalked  in  open 
day.  Offers  have  been  made  so  prodigal  that  not  fifty  years 
of  patronage  could  accomplish  the  performance."  (Bucking- 
ham's Court,  etc.,  ii.  70.) 


CHAPTER    VIII 

George  III.  and  Lord  North 

II 

"  A  general  disinclination  to  every  restraint "  was  the 
fault  George  III.  found  with  his  own  age  (February  23,  1772), 
as  some  now  find  it  of  our  own.  It  was  to  him  a  "  selfish  and 
unprincipled  age."  (May  25,  1778.)  He  was  sorry  that  it 
had  been  his  lot  to  reign  in  a  "  most  profligate  age."  He 
thought  of  himself  as  "  steering  the  bark  in  difficult  times  " 
(June  27,  1779),  as  resolved  "  till  drove  to  the  wall  to  do  what 
he  could  to  save  the  empire."     (February  26,  1782.) 

To  do  this  he  became  frankly  and  violently  partisan, 
utterly  despising,  as  became  a  man  of  his  spirit,  the  absurd 
political  fiction  that  a  constitutional  monarch  remains  a 
neutral  in  the  party  welfare  of  his  time.  Feeling  as  bitterly 
as  he  did  against  Catholics,  Dissenters,  American  colonists, 
and  Parliamentary  opponents,  how  was  it  possible  for  him 
to  be  a  neutral  in  the  strife  ?  Openness,  he  once  told  Lord 
North,  he  looked  upon  as  at  all  times  the  proper  line  for  an 
honest  fellow  to  take  (January  16,  1775),  and  he  certainly 
never  failed  to  take  it.  There  was  no  paltry  concealment 
of  his  dislikes  and  hatreds. 

But  it  is  naturally  more  openly  revealed  in  his  private 
letters  to  his  Minister.  If  the  City  of  London  dares  to 
bring  him  a  political  remonstrance  and  petition  for  a  change 
of  Ministers,  it  is  "  the  most  violent,  insolent,  and  licentious 
ever  presented  ...  a  flagrant  piece  of  impertinence." 
(March  13,  1773,  North,  Correspondence,  i.  125);  if  Lord 
Chatham  brings  forward  a  motion  to  end  hostilities  with 
America,  his  speech  consists  of  nothing  but  "specious  words 
and  malevolence  "  (May  31,  1777,  ib.  ii.  70) ;  if  Fox  persuades 
North  to  vote  with  him 'on  the  question  of  the  committal  of 

47 


48  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Woodfall,  the  printer,  for  breach  of  privilege,  the  King  is 
"  highly  incensed  at  his  presumption  .  .  .  indeed  that 
young  man  had  so  thoroughly  cast  off  every  principle  of 
common  honour  and  honesty  that  he  must  become  as  con- 
temptible as  he  is  odious."  (February  16,  1774,  North, 
Correspondence,  i.  170.) 

But  it  was  less  individual  Liberals  than  all  Liberal 
principles  that  were  odious  to  George  III.  Conciliation  was 
foreign  to  his  nature,  which  was  all  for  a  vigorous  and  spirited 
policy,  for  coercion  rather  than  for  concession.  Consequently 
we  lost  the  American  colonies.  Lord  Rockingham's  ministry 
had  repealed  the  Stamp  Act,  which  had  started  the  trouble, 
but,  though  the  King  at  last  consented  to  repeal,  he  wrote  of 
it  later  as  "  the  fatal  compliance  of  1766."  (February  4, 1774, 
ib.  i.  164.)  To  an  excess  of  leniency,  not  to  his  own  obstinacy, 
he  ascribed  all  the  subsequent  disasters.  When  in  1774 
matters  became  acute,  and  the  proposals  of  Congress  gave  an 
opening  for  a  settlement,  and  North  was  willing  to  negotiate, 
it  was  the  King  who  prevailed  on  the  Cabinet  to  reject  all 
temperate  counsels,  and  to  proclaim  as  traitors  all  who  refused 
to  submit.  He  was  certain,  he  wrote  on  July  5,  1775,  that 
**  any  other  conduct  but  compelling  obedience  would  be 
ruinous  and  culpable."  (ib.  i.  253.)  Where  so  great 
interests  are  at  stake,  the  system  of  constitutional  monarchy 
risks  too  much  on  the  chance  of  the  disposition  of  an 
individual. 

No  British  monarch,  though  he  began  his  reign  by  an 
attempt  at  peace  with  France,  was  more  often  involved  in 
war  than  George  III.  Yet  it  was  from  no  sheer  love  for  it, 
like  that  which  Louis  XIV.  regretted  on  his  deathbed.  In 
November  1770,  when  there  was  a  good  chance  of  war 
with  Spain,  he  writes  to  Lord  North  :  "  Every  feeling  of 
humanity,  as  well  as  the  knowledge  of  the  distress  war 
must  occasion,  makes  me  desirous  of  preventing  it,  if  it 
can  be  accomplished,  provided  the  honour  of  this  country 
can  be  preserved."  (ib.  i.  41.)  In  1772,  over  the  chronic 
dispute  with  France  about  the  fortifications  of  Dunkirk,  he 
refused  to  make  such  a  trifle  a  point  of  honour,  and  declared 
his  reluctance  to  draw  the  country  into  an  additional  fifty 
millions   of    National  Debt,     (ib,  i.   106.)     On  October  30, 


George  III.  and  Lord  North  49 

1804,  in  speaking  to  Rose  about  the  French  War  renewed 
the  same  year,  he  said  that  something  ought  to  be  done  to 
bring  it  to  an  end,  since  the  sort  of  warfare  then  waging 
would  wear  out  the  resources  of  the  country  without  leading 
to  any  conclusion  of  it.     (Rose,  ii.  176.) 

And,  on  the  matter  of  the  American  War,  it  is  only  fair 
to  read  the  able  Apologia  for  his  share  in  it  written  by  the 
King  at  10.34  a.m.,  of  June  14,  1779  :  "  I  should  think  it 
the  greatest  instance  among  the  many  I  have  met  with  of 
ingratitude  and  injustice,  if  it  could  be  supposed  that  any 
man  in  my  dominions  more  ardently  desired  the  restoration 
of  peace  and  solid  happiness  in  every  part  of  this  empire 
than  I  do  :  there  is  no  personal  sacrifice  I  could  not  readily 
yield  for  so  desirable  an  object ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  no 
inclination  to  get  out  of  the  present  difficulties,  which  certainly 
keep  my  mind  very  far  from  a  state  of  ease,  can  incline  me 
into  what  I  look  upon  as  the  destruction  of  the  empire.  I 
have  heard  Lord  North  frequently  drop  that  the  advantages 
to  be  gained  by  this  contest  could  never  repay  the  expense  : 
I  own  that,  let  any  war  be  ever  so  successful,  if  persons  will 
sit  down  and  weigh  the  expenses,  they  will  find,  as  in  the 
last,  that  it  has  impoverished  the  State,  enriched  individuals, 
and  perhaps  raised  the  name  only  of  the  conquerors  ;  but 
this  is  only  weighing  such  events  in  the  scale  of  a  tradesman 
behind  his  counter ;  it  is  necessary  for  those  in  the  station 
it  has  pleased  Divine  Providence  to  place  me  to  weigh  whether 
expenses,  though  very  great,  are  not  sometimes  necessary  to 
prevent  what  might  be  more  ruinous  to  a  country  than  loss 
of  money.  The  present  contest  with  America  I  cannot  help 
seeing  as  the  most  serious  in  which  any  country  was  ever 
engaged.  .  .  .  Independence  is  their  object ;  that  certainly 
is  one  which  every  man  not  willing  to  sacrifice  every  object 
to  a  momentary  and  inglorious  peace  must  concur  with  me 
in  thinking  that  this  country  can  never  submit  to  ;  should 
America  succeed  in  that,  the  West  Indies  must  follow  them. 
.  .  .  Ireland  would  soon  follow  the  same  plan  and  be  a 
separate  State,  then  this  Island  would  be  reduced  to  itself, 
and  soon  would  be  a  poor  Island  indeed,  for,  reduced  in  her 
trade,  merchants  would  retire  with  their  wealth  to  climates 
more  to  their  advantage,  and  shoals  of  manufacturers 
4 


50  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

would  leave  this  country  for  the  new  empire."  (North,  Corre- 
spondence, ii.  253.) 

Yet  the  West  Indies  and  Ireland  are  still  with  us,  nor 
have  our  manufacturers  left  us  in  shoals.  Nor  have  we 
sunk  in  the  scale  of  Powers,  as  the  King  predicted. 
"  We  are  contending  for  our  whole  consequence,"  he 
wrote,  "  whether  we  are  to  rank  among  the  great  Powers 
of  Europe,  or  be  reduced  to  one  of  the  least  considerable." 
(June  13,  1781,  ib.  ii.  377.)  Never  would  he  agree  to 
America's  independence,  which  he  was  "  confident  would 
annihilate  the  rank  in  which  Great  Britain  stood  among 
the  European  States,  and  would  render  his  situation  in  this 
country  below  continuing  an  object  to  him."  (January  21, 
1782,  ib.  ii.  403.) 

But  he  had  to  come  to  it  at  last.  From  1778  onwards 
Lord  North  tried  to  shake  himself  loose  from  his  bondage  to 
an  infatuated  King.  And  there  is  something  pathetic  in 
the  King's  struggles  to  escape  from  any  contact  with  Lord 
Chatham  or  the  Liberal  Opposition,  though  it  might 
have  saved  the  situation  had  he  done  so.  "I  solemnly 
declare  nothing  shall  bring  me  to  treat  personally  with  Lord 
Chatham."  (March  16,  1778,  ib.  ii.  149.)  "  It  is  not  private 
pique,  but  an  opinion  founded  on  an  experience  of  now  seven- 
teen years  that  makes  me  resolve  to  run  any  risk  rather  than 
submit  to  Opposition."  (March  16,  1778,  ib.  ii.  151.)  He 
will  not  hear  of  North's  deserting  him,  and  leaving  the 
road  open  to  "  a  set  of  men  who  certainly  would  make  him 
a  slave  for  the  remainder  of  his  days."  "  No  consideration 
in  life  shall  make  me  stoop  to  Opposition.  I  am  still  ready 
to  accept  any  part  of  them  that  will  come  to  the  assistance 
of  my  present  efficient  Ministers  ;  but  whilst  any  ten  men 
in  the  kingdom  will  stand  by  me,  I  will  not  give  myself 
up  into  bondage.  My  dear  Lord,  I  will  rather  risk  my 
crown  than  do  anything  I  think  personally  disgraceful." 
(March  17,  1778,  ib.  ii.  153.)  "Rather  than  be  shackled 
by  those  desperate  men,  I  will  rather  see  any  form  of  govern- 
ment introduced  into  this  Island,  and  lose  my  crown  than 
wear  it  as  a  disgrace."  (March  18,  1778,  ib.  ii.  156.)  The 
throne  was  indeed  no  bed  of  roses,  and  it  is  sad  to  think 
that  in  July  1783  he  is  reported  to  have  told  Lord  Hertford 


George  III.  and  Lord  North  51 

that  no  morning  passed  but  he  wished  himself  eighty  or 
ninety,  or  even  dead.     (Walpole's  Last  Journals,  ii.  529.) 

Yet  all  this  time  general  dismay  possessed  the  country  ; 
with  France  coming  into  the  war,  it  was  felt  that  Ministers 
were  unequal  to  the  situation,  felt  even  among  Ministers 
themselves.  North  wished  for  a  change  of  Ministers,  but 
the  utmost  the  King  would  hear  of  was  a  slight  infusion 
of  Liberals  in  the  Cabinet  :  "  Strengthen  this  administra- 
tion by  an  accession  from  any  quarter,  but  I  will  never 
consent  to  removing  the  members  of  the  present  Cabinet 
from  my  service."  (March  22,  1778,  North,  Correspond- 
ence, ii.  159.)  The  death  of  Chatham  in  that  May  saved 
the  King  from  the  country's  most  likely  saviour,  and  the 
King's  resentment  at  the  public  honours  voted  by  Parlia- 
ment to  the  deceased  statesman  is  one  of  the  least  pleasing 
incidents  in  the  whole  of  his  reign. 

Still  North  sought  for  freedom,  nor  was  the  King  un- 
willing to  try  a  modified  Coalition  Government.  But  how 
was  it  possible  when  he  declared :  "  Before  I  will  ever  hear 
of  any  man's  readiness  to  come  into  office,  I  will  expect  him 
to  see  it  signed  under  his  own  hand  that  he  is  resolved  to 
keep  the  empire  entire,  and  that  no  troops  shall  be  conse- 
quently withdrawn  from  thence,  nor  independence  ever 
allowed."  (June  22,  1779,  ib.  ii.  262.)  "To  obtain  the 
support  of  Opposition,"  he  writes  to  Chancellor  Thurlow, 
"  I  must  deliver  up  my  person,  my  principles,  and  my 
dominions  into  their  hands  :  I  must  also  abandon  my  old 
meritorious  and  faithful  servants  to  be  treated  as  their 
resentment  or  their  mercy  may  incline  them."  (December 
1779,  ib.  ii.  298.)  Even  the  country  gentlemen  and  the 
capitalist  classes  turned  against  the  Government,  but, 
whilst  North  pressed  for  an  entire  change  of  government, 
the  King  declared  that  "  the  giving  up  the  game  would  be 
total  ruin."  (September  26,  1780,  ib.  ii.  336.)  The  capitula- 
tion of  Lord  Cornwallis  at  Yorktown  in  October  1781  drove 
him  to  contemplate  flight  to  Hanover,  and  the  Royal  yacht 
was  prepared  for  a  voyage,  but  the  country  was  destined  to 
have  nearly  thirty  years  more  of  his  misrule.  At  last  came 
North's  resignation  on  March  20,  1782,  the  King  to  the 
end  persisting  in  refusing  to  send  for  any  Opposition  leader, 


52  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

or  to  treat  personally  with  one  of  them.  The  theory  of  the 
Constitution  is  that  the  monarch  accepts  a  ministry  desired 
by  Parliament ;  but  George  III.  defied  such  a  theory  alto- 
gether. Affecting  to  be  above  party,  he  thought  to  dispense 
with  the  evils  of  party  government,  and  he  ended  by  flinging 
himself  heart  and  soul  on  to  the  side  of  one  party  exclusively. 
By  so  doing  he  lost  us  thirteen  colonies  and  eight  islands  ; 
he  sacrificed  two  whole  armies  ;  he  lost  us  for  a  time  the 
sovereignty  of  the  sea,  and  nearly  doubled  the  National 
Debt ;  and  for  fifty  years,  from  1761  to  1810,  he  must  have 
cost  the  country  at  least  forty-three  million  pounds.  It  was 
a  large  price  to  pay  for  a  Patriot  King.  Whether  it  was 
too  much  must  be  left  to  individual  judgment. 

But  he  felt  deeply  the  loss  of  America.  At  a  lev6e  held 
in  the  Closet  in  1788  he  said  to  Lord  Thurlow  and  the  Duke 
of  Leeds  :  "  Whatever  you  and  Mr.  Pitt  may  think  or  feel, 
I  that  am  born  a  gentleman  shall  never  lay  my  head  in  my 
last  pillow  in  peace  and  quiet  so  long  as  I  remember  the  loss 
of  my  American  colonies."     (Malmesbury's  Diaries,  iv.  19.) 


CHAPTER    IX 

In  the  Coils  of  the  Coalition 

The  fall  of  Lord  North  brought  Lord  Rockingham  again  to 
the  surface,  but  this  time  only  to  rule  between  March  and 
July  1,  1782,  when  he  died.  Yet  in  those  few  months  he 
had  done  something  to  curtail  the  powers  of  the  Crown. 
He  had  reduced  the  Royal  Household ;  debarred  con- 
tractors from  sitting  in  Parliament ;  and  disfranchised 
excise  and  custom-house  officers  :  this  last,  according  to 
Walpole,  "  a  very  material  wound  to  the  influence  of  the 
Crown."     (Last  Journals,  ii.  430.) 

His  successor  was  Lord  Shelburne,  who,  according  to 
Walpole,  was  "  really  hated  by  His  Majesty."  (ib.  ii.  444.) 
He  had  been  so  at  an  earlier  date.  When  he  was  made 
Secretary  of  State  in  the  Grafton  Ministry  of  July  1766, 
it  was  "  notwithstanding  the  strongly  expressed  dislike  of 
the  King."  The  King,  adopting  the  popular  nickname, 
habitually  spoke  of  him  as  Malagrida,  or  the  Jesuit  of 
Berkeley  Square.  (Fitzmaurice,  ii.  6.)  The  reasons  for 
this  dislike  were  due  mainly  to  such  facts  as  Shelburne 's 
open  condemnation  of  the  extravagance  of  the  Court  ;  his 
opposition  to  the  King's  application  for  payment  of  the 
arrears  of  his  Civil  List  ;  his  contention,  against  the  King's 
Friends,  that  the  King  had  no  absolute  right  to  the  Civil 
List  independently  of  Parliament,  and  that  Parliament  had 
a  perfect  right  to  control  the  expenditure  of  it.  (ib.  ii.  4.) 
And  because  he  was  opposed  to  the  coercion  of  America, 
the  Duke  of  Grafton  in  1768  was  subjected  to  daily  instiga- 
tions from  the  King  to  expel  him  from  his  Cabinet  (ib.  i.  385)  ; 
though  the  King,  with  his  customary  urbanity,  was  "  anxious 
that  as  Lord  Shelburne  was  to  be  removed,  it  should  be  done 
in    the    least    hostile  manner  possible."      (Grafton's   Auto- 


54  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

biography,  221.)     He  resigned  on  October  19,  1768,  as  told 
in  his  Life.     (Fitzmaurice,  i.  387.) 

But,  whatever  the  King's  personal  feelings,  it  was  to 
Shelburne  that  he  turned  as  a  successor  to  Lord  Rockingham. 
But  Fox  and  eight  other  of  the  Rockingham  Whigs  left  the 
Ministry,  contending  that  the  choice  of  the  Prime  Minister 
appertained  to  the  Cabinet,  not  to  the  Crown  (Grafton,  361), 
and  they  resented  Shelburne's  acceptance  of  office  without 
consultation  with  them.  Shelburne,  on  the  other  hand, 
defended  the  King's  prerogative  to  appoint  his  own  servants. 
The  intrigues  at  the  time  seemed  to  some  to  be  most  dis- 
creditable. The  Duke  of  Grafton  was  "  so  thoroughly  dis- 
gusted with  all  that  he  saw  and  heard  that  he  wished  not  to 
come  near  the  scene."  (Autobiography,  376.)  The  King  said 
he  would  rather  go  to  Hanover  than  admit  either  Fox  or  the 
Duke  of  Portland  into  the  Shelburne  Ministry.  (Walpole, 
Last  Journals,  ii.  494.)  At  that  time  no  one  stood  worse  in 
the  King's  books  than  the  Duke  of  Portland,  destined  only 
the  next  year  to  become  Prime  Minister. 

Lord  Shelburne's  Ministry  was  defeated  in  the  Commons 
on  February  17,  1783.  His  Government  had  committed  the 
unpardonable  sin  of  bringing  the  war  with  France,  Spain, 
Holland,  and  our  Colonies  to  an  end  ;  and  it  fell  before  the 
united  attack  of  the  Fox  and  North  factions.  Then  began 
intriguing  for  the  formation  of  a  new  Ministry  worse  than 
ever.  It  shows  in  a  sense  how  easily  the  world  is  governed, 
that  six  weeks  elapsed  without  any  Government  at  all. 
The  King  tried  every  possible  combination,  but  Fox  he 
could  not  and  would  not  stand.  In  an  interview  with  W. 
Grenville  on  March  16  he  "  loaded  Fox  with  every  ex- 
pression of  abhorrence,"  and  was  "  little  less  violent " 
against  the  Duke  of  Portland.  He  reflected  the  moral  in- 
dignation widely  felt  in  the  country  at  the  coalescence  of 
men  so  antagonistic  to  one  another  as  Fox  and  North  had 
been  all  their  lives,  and  complained,  not  without  justice, 
that  the  country  was  no  longer  divided  between  parties 
formed  on  definite  principles,  but  between  factions  whose 
only  object  was  to  force  themselves  into  office  at  any  cost. 

The  situation  was  an  impossible  one  for  all  parties,  nor 
is  it  easy  to  apportion  to  each  one  his  just  share  of  blame  ; 


In  the  Coils  of  the  Coalition  55 

but  the  King's  point  of  view  is  entitled  to  consideration  and 
even  to  our  sympathy.  He  thus  gave  it  in  a  letter  to  Lord 
Temple,  dated  April  1,  1783  :  ..."  An  experience  of  now 
above  twenty -two  years  convinces  me  that  it  is  impossible 
to  erect  a  stable  administration  within  the  narrow  bounds 
of  any  faction,  for  none  deserve  the  name  of  party  ;  and 
that  in  an  age  when  disobedience  to  law  and  authority  is  as 
prevalent  as  a  thirst  after  changes  in  the  best  of  all  possible 
Constitutions,  it  requires  temper  and  sagacity  to  stem  those 
evils  which  can  alone  be  expected  from  a  collection  of  the 
best  and  most  calm  heads  and  hearts  the  kingdom  possesses. 
Judge  therefore  of  the  uneasiness  of  my  mind  at  having 
been  thwarted  in  every  attempt  to  keep  the  administration 
of  public  affairs  out  of  the  hands  of  the  most  unprincipled 
coalition  the  annals  of  this  or  any  other  nation  can  equal. 
I  have  withstood  it  till  not  a  single  man  is  willing  to  come 
to  my  assistance.  ...  To  end  a  conflict  which  stops  every 
wheel  of  Government,  and  which  would  affect  public  credit 
if  it  continued  much  longer,  I  intend  this  night  to  acquaint 
that  grateful  Lord  North  that  the  seven  Cabinet  Counsellors 
the  coalition  has  named  shall  kiss  hands  to-morrow.  .  .  . 
A  Ministry  which  I  have  avowedly  attempted  to  avoid,  by 
calling  on  every  other  description  of  men,  cannot  be  sup- 
posed to  have  either  my  favour  or  confidence  ;  and  as  such 
I  shall  most  certainly  refuse  any  honours  they  may  ask1  for. 
I  trust  the  eyes  of  the  nation  will  soon  be  opened,  as>my 
sorrow  may  prove  fatal  to  my  health  if  I  remain  long  in  this 
thraldom.  I  trust  you  will  be  steady  in  your  attachment  to 
me,  and  ready  to  join  other  honest  men  in  watching  the 
conduct  of  this  unnatural  combination,  and  I  hope  many 
months  will  not  elapse  before  the  Grenvilles,  the^Pitts,|and 
other  men  of  abilities  and  character  will  relieve  me  from  a 
situation  that  nothing  could  have  compelled  me  to  submit 
to  but  the  supposition  that  no  other  means  remained  of 
preventing  the  public  finances  from  being  materially  affected." 
(Buckingham's  Court  and  Cabinets,  i.  218.) 

When  Lord  North  the  preceding  month  advised  the  King 
to  send  for  the  Duke  of  Portland  as  his  possible  next  Minister, 
the  King  flatly  refused  to  see  him,  though  he  might  send  his 
proposals  in  writing.     The  year  before^he  Jiadj'efused  to  see 


56  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Rockingham  in  the  same  circumstances.  The  Duke  natur- 
ally resented  such  treatment,  returning  for  answer  that  if 
the  King  employed  him,  he  must  first  of  all  see  him.  (Wal- 
pole,  Last  Journals,  ii.  499.)  On  April  2  the  Duke  of  Port- 
land found  himself  at  the  head  of  the  Coalition  Ministry,  with 
Fox  and  Lord  North  joint  Secretaries  of  State.  What  a 
picture  all  this  presents  of  the  difficulties  of  a  limited  monarch. 
The  only  parallel  to  George  III.  at  grips  with  the  political 
factions  of  his  day  is  Laocoon  writhing  in  the  coils  of  the 
snakes.  "  I  have  taken  the  bitter  potion,"  he  wrote  to 
Shelburne  on  April  2,  1782,  "  of  appointing  the  seven 
Ministers  named  by  the  Duke  of  Portland  and  Lord  North 
to  kiss  hands."     (Fitzmaurice,  ii.  262.) 

But  the  Coalition  Ministers  had  a  different  point  of  view, 
and  in  its  turn  a  just  one.  They  wished  for  a  Government 
of  some  strength  and  stability,  and  less  at  the  mercy  of 
Royal  caprice  and  favour  than  the  Governments  they  had 
known  under  George  III.  The  King,  Fox  argued  with  Lord 
North,  should  not  be  suffered  to  be  his  own  Minister." 
And  Lord  North  agreed  as  to  curbing  the  Royal  power :  "  The 
King  ought  to  be  treated  with  every  sort  of  respect  and 
attention,  but  the  appearance  of  power  is  all  that  a  King  of 
this  country  can  have."  (Fox's  Correspondence,  ii.  378.) 
In  other  words,  the  struggle  lay  between  Ministers  wishing 
to  make  the  King  their  puppet  and  the  King  wishing  to  have 
puppets  for  Ministers.  And  this  has  been  the  struggle  of 
Constitutional  Monarchy  ever  since. 

As  the  object  of  the  Coalition  Ministry  was  to  make 
statesmen  less  the  "  servants  "  of  the  Crown  than  the  real 
rulers  of  the  State,  the  brevity  of  its  tenure  of  service  is 
fair  matter  for  regret.  Posterity  with  its  power  of  clearer 
vision  need  not  share  the  great  moral  indignation  of  con- 
temporaries at  the  Coalition  between  statesmen  so  opposed 
as  Fox  and  Lord  North  had  been  in  previous  years.  Fox's 
language  to  Lord  North  during  the  American  War  had  indeed 
gone  to  the  furthest  extremes  of  violence ;  as  when  on 
November  27,  1781,  he  had  expressed  the  wish  that  North 
and  his  Ministers  might  some  day  expiate  their  misdeeds  on 
a  public  scaffold  {Pari.  Hist.  xxii.  692) ;  but  the  cause  of 
discord  had  passed,  and  both  statesmen  kept  in  view  the 


In  the  Coils  of  the  Coalition  57 

reasonable  distinction  between  political  antagonism  and 
personal  animosity.  In  the  heat  of  controversy  many  of  the 
blows  that  are  aimed  at  a  measure  or  a  policy  are  apt  to  fall 
upon  their  advocates,  but  with  whatever  vigour  politicians 
may  belabour  one  another  they  know  that  in  the  whirl  and 
eddy  of  politics  enmities  may  change  to  friendships  and 
friendships  to  enmities  without  any  real  detriment  to  private 
amity.  So  it  was  with  Fox  and  Lord  North,  and  so  it  had 
been  in  1757  between  Pitt  and  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  whose 
Coalition  Government  formed  one  of  the  most  successful 
ministries  of  modern  times.  And  so  it  was  again  when  in 
1794  the  younger  Pitt  formed  a  new  Coalition  by  adding  to 
his  Cabinet  such  lifelong  Whigs  and  opponents  as  the  Duke  of 
Portland,  Lord  Fitzwilliam,  Lord  Spencer,  and  Mr.  Wyndham. 

Conway,  writing  to  the  Duke  of  Grafton  on  January  4, 
1784,  paints  a  woeful  picture  of  the  political  condition  of 
things.  He  speaks  of  "  the  miserable  condition  of  our  public 
affairs  owing  to  the  ambition  and  impracticability  of  in- 
dividuals who  are  somehow  grown  to  be  necessary  parts  of 
the  system.  .  .  .  Being  of  such  incongruous  and  incom- 
patible natures  they  can  unite  in  no  plan,  and  that  no  doubt 
is  an  evil  without  a  remedy.  We  do  not  so  much  want  them 
as  we  want  that  they  should  not  disturb  one  another,  and 
suffer  some  administration  to  be  permanent."  {Grafton, 
388.)  "  Our  poor,  almost  sinking  country  "  seemed  to  the 
writer  past  praying  for,  and  this  note  of  pessimism  runs 
through  all  the  writings  of  the  time  regarding  a  system  or 
form  of  government  which  many  besides  the  King  believed 
to  be  a  model  of  perfection. 

Lord  Temple,  who  was  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland  under 
Lord  Shelburne's  Ministry  of  1782,  gives  a  vivid  account  of 
an  audience  he  had  with  the  King  on  his  return  from  Ireland 
after  the  fall  of  the  Shelburne  Ministry.  The  King  made 
"  strong  expressions  of  resentment  and  disgust  of  his 
Ministers,  and  of  personal  abhorrence  of  Lord  North,  whom 
he  charged  with  treachery  and  ingratitude  of  the  blackest 
nature.  He  repeated  that  to  such  a  Ministry  he  never  would 
give  his  confidence,  and  that  he  would  take  the  first  moment 
for  dismissing  them." 

They  went  on  to  discuss  the  Duke  of  Portland's  proposed 


58  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

annual  allowance  of  £100,000  to  the  Prince  of  Wales.  The 
King  "  stated  with  strong  disgust  the  manner  in  which  it  was 
opened  to  him,  as  a  thing  decided,  and  even  drawn  up  in  the 
shape  of  a  message,  to  which  his  signature  was  desired  as  a 
matter  of  course,  to  be  brought  before  Parliament  the  next 
day.  His  Majesty  declared  himself  to  be  decided  to  resist 
this  attempt,  and  to  push  the  consequences  to  their  full 
extent,  and  to  try  the  spirit  of  the  Parliament  and  people 
upon  it.  .  .  .  He  declared  his  intention  to  resist  at  all  events 
and  hazards  the  proposition  for  this  enormous  allowance  to 
His  Royal  Highness,  of  whose  conduct  he  spoke  with  much 
dissatisfaction."  (Buckingham's  Court  and  Cabinets  of 
George  III.,  i.  393.) 

But  Laocoon  was  determined  not  to  remain  long  in  the 
coils  of  the  Coalition.  The  King's  thraldom  was  only  to  last 
from  April  to  December.  During  those  months  he  held 
aloof  from  his  Ministers,  scheming  with  Lord  Temple  for 
their  overthrow.  The  chance  came  with  the  East  India 
Bills  introduced  by  Fox  on  November  18,  1783.  Their 
object  was  to  take  from  the  East  Indian  Company,  and  to  vest 
in  commissioners  nominated  by  Parliament,  and  independent 
of  the  Crown,  the  management  of  Indian  affairs.  Pitt 
attacked  this  encroachment  on  the  Royal  prerogative  in  the 
usual  unmeasured  terms,  and  a  tremendous  agitation  was 
started  in  the  country.  Nevertheless,  the  Bills  passed  the 
Commons  with  thumping  majorities.  It  was  when  they 
reached  the  Lords  that  trouble  began.  Lord  Temple  not 
only  denounced  the  measures  as  "  infamous,"  but  between  the 
first  and  second  reading  prevailed  on  the  King  to  authorise 
him  to  use  the  King's  name  as  a  factor  in  the  dispute.  So  a 
card  was  sent  round  to  the  effect  that  "  whoever  voted  for 
the  India  Bill  was  not  only  not  the  King's  friend,  but  would 
be  considered  by  him  as  an  enemy  ;  and  if  these  words  were 
not  strong  enough,  Earl  Temple  might  use  whatever  words 
he  might  deem  stronger  and  more  to  the  purpose." 
(ib.  i.  285.) 

Never  was  greater  contempt  shown  for  Parliamentary 
liberties  than  in  this  action  on  the  part  of  the  King  ;  for  it 
cut  at  the  root  of  all  liberty.  It  practically  made  the  King  a 
despot,  if  the  threat  of  his  enmity  could  be  used  to  bully  the 


In  the  Coils  of  the  Coalition  59 

legislature  into  compliance  with  his  wishes,  and  his  enmity 
was  a  most  serious  menace,  when  so  few  offices  of  honour  or 
profit  could  be  held  or  hoped  for  by  the  unfortunate  victim 
of  the  King's  enmity.  No  wonder  the  Commons  passed  a 
resolution  by  an  immense  and  angry  majority  that  the 
reporting  of  any  real  or  pretended  opinion  of  the  King  on 
any  measure  before  Parliament  was  a  high  crime  and  mis- 
demeanour. But  it  availed  nothing  ;  for  the  votes  had  been 
influenced,  and  the  rejection  of  the  Indian  Bills  by  the  Lords 
saved  the  King  from  the  more  dangerous  alternative  of 
destroying  them,  as  was  clearly  contemplated,  by  the  exercise 
of  his  veto. 

The  King's  triumph  was  complete.  On  December  18, 
1783,  the  day  after  the  rejection  in  the  Lords,  a  message  was 
sent  at  midnight  to  Lord  North  and  to  Fox  commanding 
them  to  deliver  up  their  seals  of  office,  and  "  in  order  to  mark 
emphatically  the  royal  displeasure,  they  were  desired  to 
send  in  their  seals  by  the  Under-Secretaries,  as  a  personal 
interview  with  them  would  be  disagreeable  to  His  Majesty. 
The  next  day  the  rest  of  the  Ministry  were  dismissed,  and 
the  letters  conveying  their  dismissal  were  signed  by  Lord 
Temple."     (ib.  i.  290.) 

For  three  days  Lord  Temple  held  the  seals,  and  then  Pitt 
became  George's  first  Minister,  and  at  the  close  of  the  next 
year,  1784,  Lord  Temple  became  Marquis  of  Buckingham. 

So  began  the  long  Ministry  of  Pitt,  then  a  young  man  of 
less  than  twenty-five,  and  for  seventeen  years  the  King  had 
peace  so  far  as  changes  of  his  chief  Minister  were  concerned, 
but  the  revolution  which  triumphed  over  the  Coalition  was 
disastrous  for  the  country  ;  for  had  Fox  continued  in  power 
the  whole  course  of  events  would  have  been  different.  The 
agitation  against  the  slave  trade,  which  began  in  1788,  would 
not  have  had  to  continue  for  nineteen  years  before  achieving 
its  end.  The  satisfaction  of  the  Catholic  claims  of  Ireland 
by  enabling  Catholics  to  vote  for  and  sit  in  the  Irish  Parlia- 
ment would  have  prevented  the  Irish  Rebellion  of  1798, 
and  possibly  as  a  consequence  the  disastrous  Act  of  Union. 
And  above  all,  there  would  probably  have  been  no  war  with 
France,  beginning  in  1793  and  lasting  with  scarcely  an  inter- 
ruption till  1815.     There  would  have  been  no  subsidies  of 


60  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

millions  of  pounds  to  fan  the  reluctant  monarchies  of  the 
Continent  into  taking  an  active  share  with  England  in  her 
war  with  France. 

There  would  have  been  no  enormous  addition  to  the 
National  Debt.  Never  has  Constitutional  Monarchy  cost 
this  country  more  dear  than  when  it  forcibly  ejected  Fox 
from  power  and  put  Pitt  in  his  place. 

Lord  Macaulay  indeed  has  said  that  the  country  was 
never  more  peaceably  or  successfully  governed  than  between 
the  ten  years  from  1784  till  1793,  when  hostilities  with  France 
began.     But  this  view  would  seem  to  leave  out  of  account 
the  great  Regency  question  of   1788-89.     The  Constitution 
had  no  provision  against  the  possibility  of  the  mental  affliction 
of  its  Sovereign,  and  it  was  just  this  contingency  which 
occurred.     From  November  1788  till  the  following  February, 
when  the  King  recovered,  a  fierce  struggle  ensued  between 
parties  as  to  the  person  or  the  rights  of  the  Regent.     Had  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  afterwards  George  IV.,  the  inherent  right 
as  heir-apparent  to  assume  the  functions  of  Royalty,  or  did  it 
rest  with  Parliament  as  representing  the  nation  to  nominate 
the  Regent  and  to  fix  the  conditions  ?     The  latter  was  Pitt's 
view,  whilst  the  former  was  that  of  Fox,  with  whom,  at  the 
time,  the  Prince  was  on  the  most  cordial  terms  of  friendship. 
As  it  was  more  likely  at  the  time  that  the  King  would  die 
than  that  he  would  recover,  it  was  clear  that  whether  under 
a  regency,  or  a  change  of  monarch,  the  Opposition  would 
come    into    power.     Wherefore,    many    political    rats,    chief 
among  them  Lord  Chancellor  Thurlow,  left  or  thought  of 
leaving  the  sinking  ship  and  swimming  to  the  incoming  one. 
Pitt's  reign  was  in  obvious  peril.     When  he  sent  the  Govern- 
ment's plan  for  a  regency  to  the  Prince,  the  answer  was 
addressed  not  to  him,  but  to  the  Cabinet.     The  Prince  was 
so   fully   minded   to   dismiss     Pitt's   ministry  that   he   had 
actually  drawn  up  a  list  of  its  successors.     (Court  and  Cabinets, 
i.  96.)     Only  the  King's  recovery  saved  the  Government. 


CHAPTER    X 

George  III.  and  Pitt 

December  19,  1783,  was  a  red-letter  day  in  the  life  of 
George  III. ;  for  it  was  the  day  on  which  Pitt  became  Prime 
Minister,  on  the  dismissal  of  the  Coalition  Ministry.  Calm 
water  seemed  to  have  been  reached  at  last,  and  some  prospect 
in  view  of  a  stable  Government. 

Yet  at  that  time,  even  in  the  miraculous  politician  of 
twenty-five,  the  King  must  have  had  much  to  forgive  or 
forget,  for  on  June  12, 1781,  on  Fox's  motion  for  a  peace  with 
the  Colonies,  in  reply  to  Lord  Westcote,  who  had  called  the 
American  War  a  "  holy  "  one,  Pitt  had  pronounced  it  "  a  most 
accursed,  wicked,  barbarous,  cruel,  unnatural,  unjust,  and 
diabolical  war."  (Pari.  Hist.  xxii.  488.)  His  opinions,  too,  on 
Parliamentary  Reform  were  notorious,  and  in  the  first  motion 
he  had  brought  forward  in  favour  of  it,  on  May  7, 1782  (just  fifty 
years  before  any  reform  was  carried),  he  had  not  spared  the 
Crown  itself,  loudly  inveighing  against  "  the  corrupt  influence 
of  the  Crown — an  influence  which  has  been  pointed  out  in 
every  period  as  the  fertile  source  of  all  our  miseries  ...  an  in- 
fluence which  has  grown  up  with  our  growth  and  strengthened 
with  our  strength,  but  which,  unhappily,  has  not  diminished 
with  our  diminution,  nor  decayed  with  our  decay." 

Nevertheless,  when  Lord  Shelburne  resigned  on  February 
24,  1783,  the  King  had  jumped  at  Shelburne's  suggestion 
that  Pitt  should  be  his  successor.  He  had  pressed  him  in 
the  strongest  manner,  insisting  on  his  taking  time  before 
declining.  He  had  been  "  much  hurt  "  by  his  prompt  and 
resolute  refusal  on  March  25,  and  had  declared  that  after  the 
way  in  which  he  had  been  treated  by  the  Duke  of  Portland 
and  Lord  North,  it  was  "  impossible  he  could  ever  admit 
either  of  them  into  his  service."  But  the  Duke  of  Portland 
it  had  to  be,  with  Lord  North  and  the  still  more  hated  Fox 


62  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

as  Secretaries  of  State  under  him.  Their  East  Indian  Bill, 
with  the  popular  agitation  against  its  alleged  anti-monarchical 
intention,  had  been  fatal  to  their  Government,  for  the  King — 
despite  the  measure's  easy  passage  through  the  Commons — 
had  used  his  influence  to  wreck  it  in  the  Lords,  and  had 
followed  up  that  action  by  the  same  peremptory  dismissal  of 
his  Ministers  as  that  which  William  IV.  employed  against  the 
Melbourne  Ministry  in  1834.  Fox  used  to  say  that  Sayer's 
caricatures  had  done  more  to  injure  his  Indian  Bill  than  all 
the  debates  in  Parliament,  but  it  was  the  King's  action  which 
was  decisive,  and  then,  in  the  consequent  confusion,  when 
he  found  himself  "  on  the  edge  of  a  precipice,"  and  "  every 
ray  of  hope  was  pleasing,"  he  had  turned  to  the  youthful  son 
of  Lord  Chatham  and  made  him  Prime  Minister.  Against 
the  "  desperate  faction  " — as  he  styled  the  new  Opposition — 
he  had  now  found  a  Minister  in  whose  hands  he  might  fairly 
hope  that  "  the  most  perfect  of  all  human  formations,  the 
British  Constitution,"  might  be  safe.  (Stanhope's  Pitt,  i. 
Appendix  VI.) 

The  King  showed  his  discernment,  not  only  in  the  choice 
of  a  man  destined  to  prove  one  of  the  greatest  of  English 
statesmen,  but  in  his  feeling  of  the  political  pulse  of  the  People 
as  then  expressed  through  an  unreformed  Parliament ;  for 
after  Pitt's  first  Indian  Bill  had  also  been  rejected  in  the 
Commons,  the  General  Election,  consequent  on  the  Dissolu- 
tion of  March  24,  sent  the  Whig  Party  flying,  and  returned 
Pitt  to  power  with  a  majority  destined  to  remain  true  to  him 
through  three  successive  septennial  elections. 

It  is  chiefly  in  reference  to  the  great  war  with  France, 
and  to  the  burning  question  of  Catholic  emancipation,  that 
the  relations  between  Pitt  and  George  III.  are  of  most  in- 
structive interest. 

I.  George  III.,  though  destined  to  be  involved  in  one  of 
the  longest  wars  ever  waged  by  his  country,  was  by  nature 
a  most  pronounced  pacifist.  This  is  well  shown  by  a  letter 
of  his  to  Pitt  of  October  20,  1788,  when  the  Minister  was 
anxious  to  take  a  line  of  policy,  ultimately  successful,  to  save 
Sweden  from  a  threatened  attack  by  Denmark  and  Russia. 
Alluding  to  the  peace  with  America,  he  declared  that,  since 
the  country  had  taken  that  "  disgraceful  step,"  he  had  wished 


George  III.  and  Pitt  63 

— what  years  he  had  still  to  reign — that  he  might  not  again 
be  drawn  into  a  war.  "  I  am  now  within  a  few  days  of 
twenty-eight  years,  having  been  not  on  a  bed  of  roses.  I 
began  with  a  successful  war  ;  the  people  grew  tired  of  that 
and  called  out  for  peace.  Since  that,  the  most  justifiable 
war  any  country  ever  waged,  there  in  a  few  campaigns,  from 
being  popular  again  peace  was  called  for."  He  must  be  a 
second  Don  Quixote,  he  wrote,  if  he  could  ever  wish  to  fall 
into  such  a  situation  again.  So,  though  anxious  to  save 
Sweden  from  becoming  a  province  of  Russia,  he  wanted  no 
general  war.  On  October  28  he  authorised  the  Cabinet  to 
use  what  language  it  thought  best,  though  he  could  never 
think  that  the  government  of  Sweden,  by  a  corrupt  King  or 
a  corrupt  Senate,  could  be  worth  the  risk  of  a  war.  (ib.  ii. 
Appendix  IV.) 

When  the  French  Revolution  began  in  1789,  nothing  was 
further  from  Pitt's  wish  or  expectation  than  to  be  in  any  way 
mixed  up  with  it  ;  nor  did  war  with  the  Republic  come  within 
the  horizon  of  probabilities  till  towards  the  latter  months  of 
1792.  Only  in  the  February  of  that  year  had  Pitt  declared 
that,  never  in  the  history  of  the  country,  had  there  been  a 
period  when  fifteen  years  of  assured  peace  seemed  more  likely, 
and  on  the  strength  of  that  belief  he  had  reduced  both  the 
Army  and  Navy.  When  Talleyrand  had  come  to  London 
early  in  the  same  year,  and  proposed  an  Anglo-French 
Alliance,  the  Council  was  divided  about  it  :  Pitt,  Grenville, 
and  Dundas  inclining  to  the  idea,  whilst  Thurlow,  Camden, 
and,  above  all,  the  King,  strongly  opposed  it.  (Lecky,  vii.  10.) 
The  impression  Chauvelin,  who  followed  Talleyrand,  formed 
was,  that  the  King  was  only  restrained  by  his  Ministers  from 
joining  the  Continental  Coalition  against  France,  but  that 
Pitt,  whom  the  King  did  not  like,  was  inflexibly  opposed  to 
such  a  policy,  (ib.  vii.  17.)  By  October,  after  the  terrible 
September  massacres,  he  was  informed  that  Pitt  alone  in 
the  Council  was  opposed  to  arming ;  that  there  were  rumours 
of  his  resignation,  and  that  the  King  was  very  cold  to  him. 
(ib.  vii.  65.)  In  December,  Chauvelin  wrote  :  "  The  King 
of  England  and  all  his  Council,  with  the  exception  of  Pitt, 
do  not  cease  to  desire  the  war."  (ib.  vii.  123.)  Whatever 
hope  there  had  been  of  averting  war  was  destroyed  by  the 


64  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

execution  of  Louis  XVI.  on  January  21,  1793.  Chauvelin 
was  rordered  out  of  London  within  eight  days,  but  the  very 
day  after  the  execution,  Maret  was  sent  with  a  dispatch  for 
Chauvelin  to  leave  with  Lord  Grenville,  of  a  very  conciliatory 
character,  deprecating  a  war  as  a  crime  against  humanity 
and  expressive  of  a  strong  wish  for  peace.  Unhappily,  it  was 
never  delivered,  Chauvelin  having  left  before  Maret's  arrival 
on  January  30.  As  the  King's  influence  had  been  used  to 
secure  Chauvelin's  dismissal,  so  Maret  learnt  it  was  now 
used,  through  Lord  Hawkesbury,  to  induce  the  Ministers  to 
refuse  to  see  him,  though  Pitt  and  Grenville,  and  a  strong 
party  on  the  Government  side,  were  anxious — while  preparing 
for  war — to  listen  to  any  reasonable  proposal  from  France. 
(Lecky,  vii.  161.) 

If  this  story  be  true,  the  King  was,  to  some  extent, 
personally  responsible  for  the  war  which,  on  February  1, 
the  Convention  declared  against  us.  Had  Fox's  motion,  in 
December  1792,  for  recognising  the  Republic  been  carried, 
war  might  have  been  averted,  but  the  execution  of  the 
French  King  made  the  war-spirit  no  longer  repressible,  and 
posterity  can  only  record  its  admiration  for  the  long  stand 
which  Pitt  and  Grenville  had  made  on  behalf  of  neutrality. 
The  King  seems  to  have  overruled  his  Ministers.  To  Pitt  he 
wrote,  on  February  2 — the  day  after  war  had  been  declared : 
"  My  natural  sentiments  are  so  strong  for  peace  that  no  event 
of  less  moment  could  have  made  me  decidedly  of  opinion  that 
duty,  as  well  as  interest,  calls  on  us  to  join  against  the  most 
savage  as  well  as  unprincipled  nation."  And  so  the  war 
began,  which  Pitt  told  Burke  that  he  thought  would  be  a 
"  very  short  war,"  terminable  in  one  or  two  campaigns,  but 
which  Burke  predicted,  with  greater  foresight,  would  be 
both  long  and  dangerous. 

It  was  of  this  war  of  which  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  writing 
in  1804,  said  that  he  should  always  deprecate  it  as  having 
been  unnecessary  ;  he  could  not  speak  of  it  with  patience,  as 
he  should  ever  be  convinced  that  the  distresses  of  Europe 
had  derived  their  source  from  the  mistaken  counsels  of  the 
Ministers  who  governed  England  at  the  time.  (Autobio- 
graphy, 382.) 

Thenceforth,  George  III.  became  the  great  mainstay  of 


George  III.  and  Pitt  65 

the  War  Party,  but  this  party  never  entirely  silenced,  nor 
wiped  out,  the  Peace  Party,  which,  throughout  the  war,  under 
the  guidance  of  Fox  and  some  fifty  followers  in  Parliament, 
strove  gallantly  to  cool  the  war  fever  of  the  nation.  In 
that  same  month  of  February,  Fox  moved  his  five  Resolu- 
tions against  the  war  policy  of  the  Government :  their  re- 
jection by  270  to  44  gave  the  King  "  infinite  pleasure,"  as  he 
wrote  to  Pitt  on  February  19.  Another  motion  of  the  Liberal 
leader's  for  negotiation  with  France,  in  June,  defeated  by 
187  to  47,  was  described  by  the  King  as  one  which  could 
only  be  subscribed  to  by  "  an  advocate  for  the  wicked 
conduct  of  the  leaders  in  that  unhappy  country  " — a  most 
unwarrantable  accusation.  To  Lord  Malmesbury,  in  May 
1794,  he  expatiated  on  that  great  bugbear  of  all  short-sighted 
minds — the  danger  of  "a  premature  peace."    {Diaries,  iii.  96.) 

The  country  was  never  so  committed  to  that  theory  of  a 
united  front  to  the  enemy  which  has  since  become  so  popular, 
but  that  men  like  Grey,  Sheridan,  Lord  Lansdowne,  Lord 
Stanhope,  and  the  Duke  of  Bedford  did  not  hesitate,  from 
time  to  time,  to  urge  attempts  at  a  pacification. 

The  war,  by  the  nature  of  things,  proved  fatal  to  Liberal- 
ism and  Liberal  measures.  Pitt  dropped  all  interest  in 
Parliamentary  Reform,  and  it  was  a  happy  day  for  the  King 
when  Grey's  first  effort  on  its  behalf  was  defeated  on  May 
6,  1793,  by  282  to  41.  He  expressed  to  Pitt  his  "  infinite 
satisfaction,"  and  added  his  devout  prayer  that  the  Con- 
stitution might  remain  "  unimpaired  to  the  latest  posterity 
as  a  proof  of  the  wisdom  of  the  nation,  and  its  knowledge 
of  the  superior  blessings  it  enjoys."  (Stanhope's  Pitt,  ii. 
Appendix  XVIII.) 

But  it  was  just  the  Constitution  which  was  imperfect 
and  demanded  reform.  The  repression  of  public  opinion 
led  to  Societies  like  the  Corresponding  Society,  and  the 
Society  for  Constitutional  Information,  with  a  definite  desire 
to  set  up  a  Convention  in  London,  in  the  place  of  Parliament, 
and  with  such  natural  consequences  as  the  suspension  of 
Habeas  Corpus  and  trials  for  High  Treason.  Under  this 
Constitution,  men  were  caught  in  crimping  houses  like 
flies  in  a  web,  and  forced  to  enlist — a  cause  of  serious  tumults 
in  London  in  1795.  The  same  year  saw  bread  riots  in  Bir- 
5 


66  The  Mo7iarchy  in  Politics 

mingham,  Coventry,  and  Nottingham,  which  necessitated  the 
calling  out  of  the  military.  The  Corresponding  Society  held 
a  monster  meeting  in  St.  George's  Fields,  where  it  demanded 
annual  Parliaments,  and  universal  suffrage ;  ascribed  the 
high  prices  of  food  to  a  cruel  and  unnecessary  war  ;  and 
demanded  the  acknowledgment  of  the  French  Republic, 
and  a  pacification.  So  unpopular  was  the  war  that  Pitt  him- 
self said,  on  November  6,  1795,  that,  were  he  to  resign,  his 
head  would  be  off  in  six  months.  (Stanhope's  Pitt,  ii.  328.) 
No  wonder  that  he  longed  for  peace  and  kept  his  eye  wide 
open  for  a  chance  of  it,  but  the  King  was  a  growing  difficulty 
in  this  direction.  Thus,  on  May  28,  1795,  in  a  letter  to  Pitt, 
he  finds  the  defeat  of  Wilberforce's  motion  for  a  general 
pacification  by  201  to  86  "  highly  agreeable,"  "  particularly 
as  the  temper  of  the  majority  appeared  to  be  strongly 
in  favour  of  perseverance  in  the  war.  The  recent  accounts 
from  France  show  the  propriety  of  this  opinion,  but  above 
all,  till  the  bad  principles  propagated  by  that  unfortunate 
nation  are  given  up,  it  cannot  be  safe  for  any  civilised 
part  of  the  globe  to  treat  or  trust  that  people."  (ib.  ii. 
Appendix  XXVII.),  yet  that  same  year,  France  had  made 
peace  with  Tuscany,  Prussia,  Sweden,  and  Spain,  and  Pitt 
was  evidently  tending,  in  thought,  towards  peace.  He  ex- 
pressed his  desire  for  it  in  Parliament,  and  so  alarmed  was 
the  War  Party  that  Burke  was  moved  to  write  to  him  on 
October  28,  1795,  that  he  trusted  in  the  mercy  of  God  that 
he  would  never  be  led  to  think  the  French  in  the  least  like 
other  people,  or  that  "  what  was  called  peace  with  the 
robbers  of  France  was  reconcilable  with  the  repose  and 
strength  of  this  kingdom  "  ;  and  on  November  13,  1795,  the 
King  wrote  to  Pitt  of  the  impossibility  "  for  any  country  to 
treat  with  that  unprincipled  nation." 

On  December  8,  1795,  the  King  sent  a  message  to 
Parliament  expressive  of  his  desire  for  a  Treaty  of  Peace, 
on  just  and  suitable  terms,  "  yet  in  truth,  the  King  was 
as  keen  as  ever  for  the  prosecution  of  the  war,  and  his 
feelings  on  the  subject  were  among  the  principal  difficulties 
with  which  his  Ministers  had  to  contend."     (ib.  ii.  366.) 

Early  in  the  next  year,  on  January  27,  1796,  the  King 
sent  Pitt  the  objections  he  entertained  to  any  negotiations 


George  III.  and  Pitt  67 

for  peace,  (ib.  ii.  Appendix  XXX.)  Nevertheless  Pitt 
persevered,  and,  after  the  failure  of  negotiations  in  March, 
renewed  them  in  May.  There  was  need  to  do  so,  for  the 
treaties  of  Basle,  in  the  previous  year,  had  broken  up  the 
confederacy  of  Powers  against  France,  and  our  Quiberon 
expedition  had  been  a  signal  disaster,  but  in  his  pacific  course 
Pitt  "  had  great  difficulties  to  contend  with.  The  King 
was  greatly  adverse."  (ib.  ii.  371.)  Yet,  despite  the 
King,  and  Burke's  Letters  on  a  Regicide  Peace,  Pitt  re- 
opened negotiations  in  October,  sending  Lord  Malmesbury 
to  Paris  on  a  third  effort  within  the  year,  to  bring  about 
a  peace,  though  that  too  was  fated  to  fail,  despite  an  ap- 
parent wish  for  peace  on  both  sides.  It  was  that  mission  of 
which  Burke  said,  on  some  one's  remarking  on  the  length  of 
time  it  had  taken  for  Lord  Malmesbury  to  reach  Paris, 
that  it  was  not  surprising,  seeing  that  he  had  to  go  there 
on  his  knees  ;  but  Fox's  complaint  that  the  Government  had 
not  sincerely  desired  peace,  but  only  to  get  credit  for  pacific 
intentions,  is  hardly  borne  out  by  Lord  Malmesbury's 
account  of  it.     (Diaries,  iii.  259-368.) 

The  next  year,  1797,  reproduced  the  same  situation : 
the  continual  thwarting  of  Pitt's  efforts  for  peace  by  the 
King's  obstinate  opposition.  So  early  as  February  28,  the 
King  wrote  to  him  that  "  any  negotiation  at  this  period 
would  be  destruction,  for  it  would  be  entailing  every  evil 
we  have  been  avoiding  for  a  momentary  ease."  On  March 
4,  he  expressed  confidence  in  Pitt's  rejoicing  with  him  over 
the  failure  of  Lord  Malmesbury's  negotiation  :  which  rather 
confirms  Fox's  charge  of  insincerity.  (Stanhope,  iii.  Ap- 
pendix II.)  On  April  9,  Pitt  informed  the  King  that,  in  his 
opinion  and  the  Cabinet's,  the  first  possible  occasion  should 
be  seized  for  fresh  overtures  of  peace,  on  the  basis  of  leaving 
France  in  possession  of  Belgium,  and  with  Holland  as  a 
Dependency.  The  King's  reply  next  day  was  that  his 
personal  opinion  in  favour  of  war  at  the  start  had  not  changed, 
but  that  if  that  remained  a  single  one,  he  could  not  but 
acquiesce  in  a  measure  that,  from  the  bottom  of  his  heart, 
he  deplored,  (ib.  iii.  52.)  It  was  not  easy  to  deal 
with  a  King  who  could  write,  "  I  think  this  country  has 
taken  every  humiliating  step  for  seeking  peace,  which  the 


68  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

warmest  advocates  for  that  object  could  suggest,"  or  ex- 
press his  fear  of  "  destroying  every  remaining  spark  of  vigour 
in  this  once  firm  nation." 

Nor  did  Lord  Grenville,  our  Foreign  Minister,  co-operate 
with  the  Prime  Minister  much  more  cordially  than  the 
King.  When  Delacroix,  the  Directory's  Foreign  Minister, 
replied  to  his  suggestion  of  peace  overtures  with  a  ready 
assent,  but  with  a  diplomatic  informality,  Grenville  took 
great  offence,  and  wished  to  break  off  further  discussion. 
Pitt,  however,  insisted  on  going  on,  declaring  it  his  duty 
"  as  an  English  Minister  and  a  Christian  to  use  every  effort  to 
stop  so  bloody  and  wasting  a  war."  Grenville  gave  way, 
but  insisted  on  the  King's  being  made  aware  of  his  dissent. 
When  Lord  Malmesbury  again  started  on  June  30,  on  his 
second  abortive  peace  mission,  Pitt  was  so  anxious  for 
peace  that  he  declared  himself  ready  to  "  stifle  every  feeling 
of  pride."  The  long  negotiations  would  have  ended  in 
peace,  in  Lord  Malmesbury's  opinion,  but  for  the  Revolu- 
tion of  September  4,  which  caused  a  change  in  the  French 
Plenipotentiaries  ;  but  it  is  clear  from  his  letters  that  Pitt 
and  Grenville  were  pulling  in  different  directions.  It  is 
impossible  to  read  Lord  Malmesbury's  two  letters  to  Canning 
of  August  29,  without  perceiving  that  Grenville,  all  the 
time,  was  pulling  hard  for  war,  hoping  to  bring  about  a 
rupture  of  the  negotiations  by  raising  the  terms  of  peace, 
so  that  Malmesbury,  feeling  that  he  was  at  Lille  with  the 
real  object  of  breaking  off  the  negotiation  with  credit, 
rather  than  of  terminating  it  successfully,  contemplated 
resignation  (Diaries,  iii.  517-9) ;  and  behind  Grenville 
and  the  War  Party  in  the  Cabinet  was  the  King,  so  that 
it  is  not  surprising  that  the  peace  mission  failed.  Lord 
Malmesbury  thought  it  would  infallibly  have  succeeded 
but  for  the  "  political  earthquake "  of  September  4  at 
Paris  (iii.  577),  but  the  fault  did  not  all  lie  with  the  French, 
who,  to  the  last,  maintained  their  unshaken  wish  for  peace. 
The  main  obstacles  against  Pitt  were  "  the  vehement  pre- 
judice of  the  King,  the  unbending  temper  of  Lord  Grenville, 
and  the  warlike  ardour  of  some  other  of  his  colleagues." 
(Stanhope,  iii.  61.) 

So  the  war  had  to  go  on,  despite  the  general  wish  in 


George  III.  mid  Pitt  69 

both  countries  for  its  termination.  "  What  is  its  object  ?  " 
asked  Sheridan  ;  "  the  war  is  continued  for  the  sole  purpose 
of  keeping  nine  worthless  Ministers  in  their  places,"  and 
when,  on  December  14,  1797,  there  was  a  great  Thanks- 
giving at  St.  Paul's,  after  three  great  naval  victories,  Pitt, 
on  the  way  thither,  was  hooted  at,  "  and  otherwise  insulted 
by  the  multitude."  (ib.  iii.  79.)  On  January  24,  1798,  at 
a  great  dinner  in  honour  of  Fox's  birthday,  the  Duke  of 
Norfolk  called  on  the  guests  to  drink  to  their  Sovereign's 
health — to  the  majesty  of  the  people.  It  was  for  repeating  this 
same  toast  a  few  months  later  at  the  Whig  Club  that  the  King 
himself  struck  Fox's  name  off  the  Privy  Council  List,  on  May  9. 
The  next  chance  of  peace  occurred  after  November  9, 

1799,  when  Bonaparte,  then  made  First  Consul,  in  a  letter 
to  George  III.,  offered  to  negotiate.  The  diplomatic  im- 
propriety of  addressing  the  King  direct  was  too  much  for 
the  pedantry  of  Grenville,  and  on  January  4,  1800,  the 
Cabinet  declined  the  offer.  They  could  not  think  of  such  a 
thing  "  till  the  restless  scheme  of  destruction  which  had 
endangered  the  very  existence  of  civil  society  was  at  last 
finally  relinquished."  (ib.  iii.  210-1.)  Pitt  thought  it 
better  to  wait  till  the  new  French  Government  was  more 
solidly  established,  letting  the  French  know  that  the  shortest 
road  to  peace  would  be  their  restoration  of  Royalty — "  that 
most  desirable  of  all  issues  to  the  war,"  but  the  King  was 
worst  of  all.     "  No  disaster,"  he  wrote  to  Pitt  on  January  2*, 

1800,  "could  make  him  think  the  treating  for  peace  wise 
or  safe,  whilst  the  French  principles  subsisted,"  for,  "  no 
confidence  could  be  placed  in  the  present  French  Govern- 
ment. My  opinion  is  formed  on  principle,  not  on  events, 
and,  therefore,  is  not  open  to  change."  So  although,  as  Fox 
said,  the  people's  desire  for  peace  was  none  the  less  strong 
for  the  enforced  suppression  of  its  utterance,  a  fair  overture 
for  peace  had  to  be  neglected,  because  Pitt  wished  the  French 
to  submit  to  monarchy  again  ;  Grenville  wished  them  to 
change  their  principles  ;  and  the  King  was  invincibly  opposed 
to  peace  on  any  terms. 

In  August  of  the  same  year  more  overtures  for  peace 
fell  through,  the  Cabinet  being  hopelessly  divided.  Some 
were  for  no  peace  with  a  Revolutionary  Government  ;    some 


70  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

saw  the  only  chance  of  a  durable  peace  in  the  restoration  of 
the  Bourbons  ;  some  were  for  our  separate  negotiation  with 
France  ;  and  others  only  for  a  negotiation  in  company  with 
Germany.  Pitt  had  little  chance,  but  next  year,  1801, 
though  he  had,  in  February,  been  driven  by  the  King's  anti- 
Catholic  attitude,  to  give  way  to  Addington,  his  hand  had 
the  chief  control  in  the  negotiations  for  peace  which  began 
in  September  1801  and  ended  on  March  27,  1802,  in  the 
Treaty  of  Amiens.  It  was  this  peace  which  Wyndham 
denounced  as  the  "  death  warrant  "  of  the  country,  a  blow 
given  to  it,  under  which  it  might  languish  for  a  few  years, 
but  from  which  it  could  never  recover.     {Stanhope,  iii.  360.) 

II.  On  other  points  besides  war  or  peace,  the  influence 
of  the  Monarch  on  his  Minister  deprived  the  latter  of  all 
free  play  for  his  abilities,  and  acted  most  detrimentally  on 
the  future  history  of  the  country.  As  a  rule,  Pitt,  after  a 
struggle,  could  prevail  with  the  King,  who  had  yielded  to 
him  "not  only  with  aversion,  but  anguish  of  mind,"  on 
several  occasions,  as  when  it  had  been  a  question  of  dismissing 
Thurlow  from  the  Chancellorship  ;  or  of  recalling  the  Duke 
of  York  from  Flanders,  after  his  disastrous  campaign ;  or 
of  sending  Malmesbury  on  his  missions  of  peace  to  France ; 
but  on  the  question  of  relaxing  the  legal  disabilities  of 
Catholics,  the  King  was  adamant,  and  Pitt  could  prevail 
nothing.  In  1795  the  King  consulted  Lord  Kenyon  and 
the  Attorney -General  as  to  whether  the  repeal  of  the  Test 
Acts  was  consistent  with  his  Coronation  oath,  and  though 
both  his  advisers  replied  in  the  affirmative,  the  King  was 
over-persuaded  to  the  contrary  by  Lord  Chancellor  Lough- 
borough, and  encouraged  to  resist  any  legislation  of  the 
sort.  Doubtless,  the  King  was  within  his  constitutional 
and  moral  right  ;  the  point  is  that  the  Constitution,  in  allow- 
ing so  much  to  the  conscience  of  an  individual,  conceded  too 
much.  The  Catholic  Relief  Bill  of  1791  had  removed  certain 
disabilities,  but  the  necessary  declaration  of  Protestantism  still 
precluded  Catholics  from  serving  in  the  Militia,  at  a  time  when 
the  never-ending  war  demanded  as  large  a  recruiting  area 
as  possible. 

In  1797  the  Lords  threw  out  a  Bill  which,  with  Pitt's 
support,  had  passed  the  Commons  for  removing  this  restric- 


George  III.  and  Pitt  71 

tion  ;  nor  did  English  Catholics  derive  any  benefit  from  the 
Irish  Act  of  1793,  which,  whilst  still  excluding  Catholics 
from  the  Irish  Parliament,  admitted  them  to  the  franchise, 
and  to  most  Civil  and  Military  offices  in  that  country. 
Grattan's  Bill  for  complete  Irish  emancipation  in  1795, 
under  the  auspices  of  Lord  Fitzwilliam,  Lord-Lieutenant, 
was  much  disliked,  from  the  first,  by  the  King,  who,  on 
February  6,  wrote  Pitt  a  memorandum  against  it.  That 
same  day  he  expressed  his  horror  of  Lord  Fitzwilliam's 
proposals  ;  he  expressed  his  surprise  to  the  Duke  of  Portland 
at  the  idea  of  admitting  Catholics  to  sit  in  the  Irish  Parlia- 
ment ;  said  that  the  whole  plan  strongly  justified  objections 
urged  against  previous  indulgences  ;  that  it  must  lead  to 
separation,  and  that  it  ran  exactly  counter  to  the  very 
purpose  for  which  his  family  had  been  invited  to  mount 
the  throne  of  Great  Britain,  in  preference  to  the  House 
of  Savoy,  (ib.  ii.  Appendices  XXIII.,  XXIV.)  Conse- 
quently, on  February  25,  1795,  Lord  Fitzwilliam  resigned ; 
on  March  25,  to  the  great  grief  of  Ireland,  he  left  the 
country,  and  on  May  4,  Grattan's  Bill  was  defeated  by 
155  to  84  on  the  second  reading,  and  thus  a  most  hopeful 
policy  for  the  conciliation  of  Ireland  fell  to  the  ground. 

But  for  this  failure  there  would  probably  have  been  no 
rebellion  in  1798;  no  Act  of  Union  in  1800.  When  Lord 
Cornwallis  was  sent  as  Viceroy  to  Ireland  in  1798,  the  King 
wrote  to  Pitt  on  June  2  that  Lord  Cornwallis  must  be  given 
clearly  to  understand  that  no  indulgence  could  be  granted 
to  the  Catholics,  further  than  had  been — the  King  was 
afraid — "unadvisedly  done  on  former  occasions."  (ib. 
iii.  Appendix  XVI.)  Yet  Cornwallis  wished  the  admis- 
sion of  Catholics  to  Parliament  to  be  a  condition  of 
the  Union,  being  of  opinion  that  otherwise  there  could  be 
no  peace  nor  safety  in  Ireland.  So,  of  course,  thought  Pitt. 
Then  occurred  the  famous  scene  at  the  Levee,  when  the 
King  inquired  of  Dundas  :  "  What  is  this  that  this  young 
Lord  (Castlereagh)  has  brought  over  from  Ireland,  and  is 
going  to  throw  at  my  head  ?  "  When  it  was  explained  to 
him  that  it  was  Catholic  emancipation,  he  exclaimed  loudly  : 
"  I  shall  reckon  any  man  my  personal  enemy  who  proposes 
any  such  measure.     This  is  the  worst  Jacobinical  thing  that 


72  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

I  ever  heard  of."  Another  story  credits  him  with  saying 
that  he  would  rather  beg  his  bread  through  Europe  than 
consent  to  such  an  idea.  After  this,  there  could  be  nothing 
but  surrender  on  one  side  or  the  other,  and  it  was  the  Minister 
who  had  to  surrender.  It  was  in  vain  that  he  wrote  the 
King  on  January  31  a  masterly  summary  of  the  arguments 
for  such  a  measure  ;  for  it  was  instantly  rejected  as  nothing 
less  than  "  the  complete  overthrow  of  the  whole  fabric  of 
our  happy  Constitution." 

Pitt  accordingly  surrendered,  and  Addington — the  Speaker 
— took  his  place.  On  February  18,  the  King,  writing  to 
his  Minister  of  the  last  seventeen  years,  for  once,  as  "  My 
dear  Pitt,"  took  it  for  granted  that  his  beaten  servant  was 
then  closing — much  to  his  own  sorrow — his  political  career. 
{Stanhope,  iv.  Appendix  XXXII.)  Canning,  who  resigned 
with  Pitt,  was  one  of  those  who  had  counselled  him  not  to 
yield  to  the  King.  So  many  concessions,  he  told  Lord  Mal- 
mesbury,  had  been  made,  and  so  many  important  measures 
overruled  from  the  King's  opposition  to  them,  that  Govern- 
ment had  been  weakened  exceedingly,  and  if  Pitt  had  not 
made  a  stand,  he  could  only  have  remained  a  nominal  Minister, 
whilst  the  real  power  would  have  rested  with  the  King's 
advisers  who  kept  out  of  the  public  view.  (Diaries,  iv.  4.) 
So  because  the  Minister  had  to  give  way  to  the  Monarch  on 
what  was  a  cardinal  condition  of  the  success  of  the  Union, 
that  measure,  instead  of  being — as  the  King  thought — "  one 
of  the  most  useful  measures  effected  during  his  reign,"  and 
one  calculated  "  to  give  stability  to  the  whole  Empire," 
was  the  greatest  legislative  failure  of  our  history. 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  doubt  that  the  whole  episode 
was  a  personal  contest  between  Monarch  and  Minister,  in 
which  the  latter  was  defeated.  Canning  told  Lord  Malmes- 
bury  that  Pitt  went  out  of  office,  not  on  the  Catholic  question 
alone,  but  on  the  manner  of  the  King's  opposition,  (ib. 
iv.  75.)  The  King  had  for  long  been  dissatisfied  with  Pitt's 
"  authoritative  manners,"  and  when  he  sent  for  Wyndham 
and  Lord  Malmesbury  to  Weymouth,  in  August  1800,  it 
had  been  with  the  idea  of  making  them  respectively  his 
Prime  Minister  and  Foreign  Secretary,  (ib.  iv.  22.)  Lord 
Malmesbury  himself   found   fault  with  Pitt's  "  overweening 


George  III.  and  Pitt  73 

ambition,  great  and  opinionative  presumption,  and  perhaps 
not  quite  constitutional  ideas  with  regard  to  the  respect  and 
attention  due  to  the  Crown."     (ib.  iv.  33.) 

That  their  relations  were  by  no  means  always  smooth 
is  well  shown  by  Lord  Sidmouth's  story  to  Dean  Milman, 
that  on  the  question  of  the  successor  to  Archbishop  Moore 
"  such  strong  language  had  never  passed  between  a  Sove- 
reign and  his  Minister  "  ;  when  the  King  prevailed,  and  the 
Bishop  of  Norwich  was  chosen.     (Stanhope,  iv.  252.) 

The  agitation  of  this  difference  with  Pitt  brought  on 
another  of  the  King's  attacks  of  mental  illness,  about  which, 
writing  to  Dr.  Willis  on  March  7,  1801,  the  King  asked  him  to 
inform  Pitt  that  he  was  then  quite  recovered,  and  adding, 
"  But  what  has  he  not  to  answer  for,  who  is  the  cause  of  my 
having  been  ill  at  all  ?  "  It  was  in  consequence  of  this  that 
Pitt,  in  the  kindness  of  his  heart,  meeting  Dr.  Willis  at 
Addington's  house  and  in  Addington's  presence,  authorised 
him  to  tell  the  King  that  he  would  never  again  agitate  the 
Catholic  question,  whether  in  or  out  of  office,  during  the 
rest  of  the  King's  reign.  (Malmesbury's  Diaries,  iv.  31,  32  ; 
Stanhope,  iii.  304.)  Six  years  later,  the  King  declared  that 
Pitt  gave  a  pledge  in  writing  to  the  same  effect,  and  undertook 
to  oppose  any  such  measure  whenever  and  by  whomsoever 
proposed.     (Colchester,  ii.  200.) 

It  was  on  the  same  terms  that  Tierney  took  office  in 
1801,  Lord  Castlereagh  in  1803,  Canning  in  1804,  and  Lord 
Grenville  and  Fox  in  1806.  When  the  Austrian  Ambassador 
asked  Fox  whether  he  felt  no  difficulty  about  the  Catholic 
question,  Fox  replied  :  "  Not  at  all ;  I  am  determined  not  to 
annoy  my  Sovereign  by  bringing  it  forward."  (Stanhope, 
iv.  391.)  The  spirit  of  consideration  thus  shown  was  beyond 
praise,  but  it  is  hardly  good  politics  that  measures  deemed  of 
essential  importance  to  the  welfare  of  the  State  should  have 
to  be  postponed  indefinitely  for  such  a  reason. 

Although  there  had  been  no  definite  pledge  that  Emanci- 
pation should  be  a  sequel  to  the  Union  with  Ireland,  the  hope 
held  out  of  it  to  the  Irish  nation  justified  the  resignation  of 
Pitt  and  Lord  Grenville.  "  It  was  always  my  opinion," 
wrote  the  latter,  "that  the  Union  with  Ireland  would  be  a 
measure  extremely  incomplete  and  defective,  as  to  some  of 


74  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

the  most  material  benefits  to  be  expected  from  it,  unless 
immediate  advantage  were  taken  of  it  to  attach  the  great 
body  of  the  Irish  Catholics  to  the  measure  itself,  and  to  the 
Government,  as  administered  under  the  control  of  the  United 
Parliament.  .  .  .  The  removal  of  the  remaining  disqualifica- 
tions from  Parliament,  and  from  office,  seemed  to  me  the 
one  indispensable  feature  of  such  a  system."  (February  1, 
1801,  Buckingham's  George  111.,  iii.  128.)  He  and  Pitt  had 
devised  a  plan  for  substituting  a  political  for  the  sacramental 
test,  for  all  members  of  Parliament,  office-holders,  ministers, 
and  teachers  ;  and  this  plan  "  having  been  stated  to  the 
Cabinet  was  approved  by  the  majority  of  the  King's  ser- 
vants."    (ib.  iii.  130.)     But  the  King  would  have  none  of  it. 

So  from  February  1801  to  May  1804,  Addington  held  the 
place  that  had  been  Pitt's  for  seventeen  years  ;  but  the 
Catholic  question  remained  as  a  chronic  cause  of  friction,  to 
the  breaking  up  of  Ministries  and  the  shattering  of  political 
alliances,  and  the  disturbance  of  the  kingdom.  Though 
Pitt,  within  three  weeks  of  his  resignation,  had  set  the  King's 
mind  completely  at  ease  on  the  question  (Malmesbury's 
Diaries,  iv.  119),  the  question  remained  the  great  weapon 
used  by  those  who  wished  to  keep  the  King  hostile  to  Pitt. 
It  was  perpetually  dinned  into  the  royal  ears  that  Pitt  was 
as  strongly  bent  as  ever  on  emancipation,  and  that  all  sug- 
gestions to  the  contrary  were  with  a  view  to  returning  to 
power,     (ib.  iv.  162,  172.) 

The  plottings  for  Pitt's  return  to  power  had  almost 
succeeded  by  February  1804,  when  the  King  again  fell  ill 
and  so  remained,  more  or  less,  through  the  four  following 
critical  months.  Meantime,  war  with  France  had  begun 
again  in  May  1803,  and  100,000  French  soldiers  at  Boulogne 
at  least  threatened  an  invasion.  It  was  a  time  for  a  political 
union  and  for  a  strong  Government.  Pitt's  letter  of  March 
29  to  Lord  Melville  expressed  his  desire  to  form  a  Govern- 
ment which  should  be  based  on  the  extinction  of  parties,  and 
in  which  Fox,  Grenville,  and  others  should  share  the  councils 
of  his  Cabinet.  But  he  felt  that  a  proposal  to  the  King 
"  to  take  into  a  share  in  his  councils  persons  against  whom  he 
had  long  entertained  such  strong  and  natural  objections, 
ought  never  to  be  made  to  him  but  in  such  a  manner  as  to  leave 


George  III.  and  Pitt  75 

him  a  free  option."  (Stanhope,  iv.  142.)  Again  it  was  the 
monarch's  personal  animosity  that  stood  in  the  way  of  the 
national  welfare,  but  the  national  welfare  demanded  that  the 
risk  of  the  royal  displeasure  should  be  run.  On  April  21, 
1804,  Pitt  accordingly  wrote  to  the  King,  with  whom  he  had 
had  no  political  interview  for  three  years,  a  letter  expressive 
of  his  opinions,  and  of  his  determination  to  avoid  committing 
himself  to  any  engagement,  the  effects  of  which  could  be 
likely  to  occasion — in  any  contingency — a  sentiment  of 
dissatisfaction  or  uneasiness  in  His  Majesty's  mind,  (ib. 
iv.  Appendix  III.)  In  plain  English,  he  made  a  bid  for 
power,  and  a  promise  to  drop  the  Catholic  question.  On 
April  29,  Addington  resigned,  and  next  day  Pitt  received  the 
King's  orders  for  the  plan  of  a  new  Ministry.  The  Catholics 
were  sacrificed  to  Royalty. 

On  May  2,  1804,  Pitt  replied  to  the  King,  in  a  long  letter 
to  Lord  Chancellor  Eldon,  intimating  his  desire  for  a  Govern- 
ment "  drawn  without  exception  from  parties  of  all  descrip- 
tions, and  without  reference  to  former  differences  and  divi- 
sions." Such  a  Government,  destructive  of  all  appreciable 
opposition  in  Parliament  or  the  country,  would  make 
alliances  on  the  Continent  more  easy  against  the  common 
foe,  and  enable  the  Catholic  question  to  be  shelved  from 
discussion.  Therefore,  he  wished  to  include  Fox  and  Lord 
Grenville  in  any  new  arrangement,  and  he  expressed  a  wish 
for  a  personal  interview  with  the  King. 

The  King,  in  reply  to  the  Chancellor,  doubted  whether 
Pitt  would  wish  for  an  interview  after  receipt  of  his  reply  ; 
he  would  probably  prefer  to  "  prepare  another  essay,  con- 
taining as  many  empty  phrases  and  as  little  information 
as  the  one  he  had  before  transmitted."  (ib.  iv.  166.) 
The  reply  itself  was  an  amazing  one.  It  began  by  lamenting 
that  Pitt  had  taken  so  rooted  a  dislike  to  Addington,  who  had 
so  handsomely  come  forward  when  Pitt  had  resigned,  "  to 
support  his  King  and  country  when  the  most  ill-digested 
and  dangerous  proposition  was  brought  forward  by  the 
enemies  of  the  Established  Church."  He  could  "  never  forget 
the  wound  that  was  intended  at  the  Palladium  of  our  Church 
Establishment,  the  Test  Act,  and  the  indelicacy — not  to 
call  it  worse — of  wanting  His  Majesty  to  forego  his  solemn 


76  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Coronation  oath."  He  could  not  be  satisfied  unless  Pitt 
made  as  strong  an  assurance  of  his  support  of  that  wise  law, 
as  he  did  in  1796,  when  he  said  that  the  smallest  alteration 
in  it  would  be  a  death-wound  to  the  British  Constitution. 
He  was  astonished  that  Pitt  should,  for  one  moment,  harbour 
the  thought  of  bringing  "  such  a  man  "  as  Fox  before  his 
royal  notice.  If  Pitt  repeated  the  idea,  or  proposed  Lord 
Grenville,  he  could  not  accept  his  services,  but  if  he  yielded 
on  these  points,  His  Majesty  did  not  object  to  his  forming 
a  plan  of  Government.     {Stanhope,  iv.  Appendix  IX.,  X.) 

On  May  6,  Pitt  replied  in  a  firm  and  graceful  letter, 
traversing  the  King's  ideas  on  the  Catholic  question,  but 
promising  to  refrain  from  again  pressing  it — denying  all 
personal  dislike  to  Fox — and  ending  with  a  declaration  that, 
unless  the  King  would  deign  to  see  him,  he  could  no  longer 
hope  that  his  "  feeble  services  "  could  be  employed  to  the 
King's  advantage,  or  to  his  own  satisfaction.  So,  on  May  7, 
a  three  hours'  interview  took  place  between  the  King  and 
Pitt,  at  which,  when  the  latter  expressed  satisfaction  at  the 
King's  looking  better  than  after  his  recovery  from  his 
previous  illness,  the  King  gracefully  replied  :  "  That  is  not 
to  be  wondered  at.  I  was  then  on  the  point  of  parting  with 
an  old  friend ;  I  am  now  about  to  regain  one."  (ib.  iv. 
170.)  So  the  wound  was  pleasantly  healed.  But  about 
Fox,  there  could  be  no  question,  though  it  was  of  little  use 
for  Pitt  to  drop  the  Catholic  cause,  unless  his  great  rival  did 
the  same.  In  vain  Pitt  told  the  King  that  "  he  thought 
the  most  certain  way  of  ensuring  Mr.  Fox  never  stirring 
the  question  again  would  be  the  including  him  in  the  new 
arrangement,  as  he  (Mr.  Pitt)  would  make  the  stipulation 
that  he  would  not  move  it  a  sine  qua  non  of  such  an  arrange- 
ment." (Rose's  Diaries,  ii.  114.)  The  King  was  deaf  to  all 
argument.  He  expressed  later  to  Rose  his  intense  surprise 
that  Pitt  should  have  entertained  the  thought  of  suggesting 
Fox  as  a  colleague,  and  still  more  "  that  he  should  have 
urged  it  with  the  earnestness  he  did,  especially  as  Mr.  Pitt 
himself  was  the  person  who  had  proposed  expunging  his 
name  from  the  list  of  Privy  Councillors.  .  .  .  His  Majesty 
added  that  he  had  taken  a  positive  determination  not  to 
admit  Mr.  Fox  into  his  councils,  even  at  the  hazard  of  civil 


George  III.  ana  Pitt  77 

war,  and  he  had  told  Pitt  the  same  thing."  (ib.  ii.  155, 
182.) 

Thus,  at  a  most  critical  time  in  our  history,  the  councils 
of  the  nation  were  weakened  by  the  personal  and  religious 
prejudices  of  the  King  ;  for  the  consequence  of  Fox's  ex- 
clusion was  the  exclusion  of  Lord  Grenville  and  other  friends, 
who  refused  to  serve  if  Fox  were  proscribed,  and  the  con- 
sequence of  that  was  the  prolongation  of  the  war.  Pitt  had 
intended  Fox  for  his  Foreign  Secretary  ;  on  the  mere  rumour 
of  such  a  thing,  and  of  Livingstone's  having  come  from 
France  with  a  view  to  negotiate,  the  funds  on  May  17  rose 
one  per  cent.  (ib.  ii.  136),  and  when  in  June  of  the  same 
year,  1804,  an  opening  for  making  peace  occurred,  no  steps 
towards  it  were  taken  because  Mr.  Pitt  "  thought  no  good 
consequences  could  result  from  the  communication  "  that 
had  been  made  to  him.  (ib.  ii.  150.)  With  Fox  at  his 
side,  he  might  have  thought  differently  ;  as  it  was,  the 
Minister  responsible  for  the  country's  safety  was  deprived 
of  the  help  on  which  he  relied  for  success,  and  was  forced  to 
expose  his  new  Government  to  all  that  opposition  in  Parlia- 
ment which  he  had  been  so  anxious  to  avoid.  The  Duke  of 
Grafton's  comment  was  a  fair  one  :  "  The  King's  unwilling- 
ness to  have  a  solid  and  firm  administration  is  wonderful, 
and  the  narrow  policy  of  St.  James's  continued  still,  and 
perhaps  it  is  the  source  from  whence  have  flowed  those  mis- 
fortunes and  sufferings  which  Europe  is  enduring."  (Auto- 
biography, 369.) 

The  continuance  of  the  war  for  another  ten  years,  and 
the  dangerous  Catholic  agitation  for  another  twenty-five, 
may  be  fairly  attributed  to  the  action  thus  taken  by  the 
King,  in  the  teeth  of  the  advice  of  his  First  Minister ;  and 
what  makes  the  matter  worse  is,  that  during  the  whole 
period  of  this  agitating  negotiation,  the  King  was  only  fit- 
fully right  in  his  mind.  Both  Lady  Uxbridge  and  Mrs. 
Harcourt  gave  Lord  Malmesbury  the  same  pitiful  account 
of  him,  and  of  the  distress  his  condition  caused  his  family, 
for,  whilst  apparently  quite  right  when  talking  on  business, 
or  to  his  Ministers,  in  private  life  he  was  harsh  and  inco- 
herent, quite  unlike  his  usual  character.  He  made  capricious 
changes   everywhere,    from   the   Lord   Chamberlain   to   the 


78  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

grooms  and  footmen  ;  he  removed  the  Lords  of  the  Bed- 
chamber without  a  shadow  of  reason.  (Diaries,  iv.  310,  318.) 
An  acute  observer  like  Lord  Malmesbury  perceived  that 
it  was  a  question  of  passing  a  Regency  Bill  without  delay, 
but  who  could  suggest  it  to  the  King  ?  The  persons  who 
saw  most  of  the  King  were  "  quite  incapable — perfectly 
torpid  courtiers,"  yet  if  it  became  a  contest  between  the 
King  ill  and  the  Prince  well,  about  the  nature  of  a  Regency, 
the  common  and  usual  bonds  of  opposition  might  be  over- 
stepped, and  "  civil  discord,  if  not  civil  war,  was  not  abso- 
lutely impossible."  (ib.  iv.  308.)  So  the  country  remained 
at  actual  war,  and  was  confronted  with  civil  war,  because 
there  was  virtually  no  provision  in  the  Constitution  against 
possible  mental  failure  in  the  person  at  its  head. 

The  evil  consequences  soon  manifested  themselves.  The 
strain  caused  by  his  inability  to  include  in  his  Ministry  such 
formidable  opponents  as  Fox  and  his  friends  told  severely 
on  Pitt's  health.  In  September  1805  he  again  tried  to  win 
the  King's  consent  to  such  an  alleviation  of  his  burden  as 
he  had  desired  before,  but  His  Majesty  was  more  obdurate 
than  ever :  he  would  on  no  account  suffer  Fox.  On 
January  8,  1806,  within  a  few  weeks  of  his  death,  Pitt  re- 
marked to  Lord  Melville  that  he  hoped  the  King  would  not 
live  to  repent  sooner  than  he  expected  of  the  rejection  of  the 
advice  tendered  to  him  at  Weymouth  (Stanhope,  iv.  333, 
369)  ;  and  as  the  immediate  consequence  of  Pitt's  death 
was  the  Ministry  of  Lord  Grenville,  with  Fox  for  Foreign 
Minister,  it  is  not  impossible  that  such  tardy  and  fruitless 
repentance  crossed  the  King's  mind.  But  how  different 
might  have  been  the  history  of  the  country,  and  of  Europe, 
had  their  destinies  not  depended — in  May  1804 — on  the 
caprice  of  a  King  mentally  incompetent  even  to  conduct  his 
own  household. 


CHAPTER    XI 

George  the  Conqueror 

George  III.  was  no  more  to  blame  than  the  majority  of  his 
subjects  for  holding  that  the  admission  of  Catholics  to  the 
Army  and  Navy,  to  civil  offices,  or  to  voting  for  or  sitting  in 
Parliament,  would  be  fatal  to  Protestantism  or  even  to  the 
political  connection  between  the  two  islands.  In  reality, 
emancipation  was  the  one  chance  of  the  success  of  the  Act 
of  Union,  and  the  King  by  his  personal  opposition  to  it 
remains  more  than  any  one  responsible  before  history  for 
the  shipwreck  of  that  Act.  With  the  best  intentions  in  the 
world,  his  action  in  this  matter  was  a  political  calamity  to 
the  country.  Yet  the  real  blame  rests  not  so  much  with 
him  as  with  the  political  system  which  conferred  on  him 
this  virtually  absolute  power. 

Contemporaries,  who  could  not  see  into  the  future,  did 
not  easily  perceive  this,  and  to  most  of  them,  as  to  Lord 
Malmesbury,  the  King  was  a  Sovereign  "  to  whose  kingly 
virtues,  and  to  whose  manly  and  uniform  steady  exertion  of 
them  during  a  reign  of  forty  years,  this  country  and  every 
subject  in  it,  owed  the  preservation  of  its  liberties  and  every- 
thing that  is  valuable  to  him."  (Diaries,  iv.  15.)  It  is  only 
fair  to  his  memory  to  remember  this,  and  to  set  it  against  the 
judgment  of  another  great  contemporary,  Lord  Holland,  in 
whose  eyes  there  was  "  nothing  great,  kind,  open,  or  graceful  " 
in  the  King's  character  or  manners,  not  one  single  brilliant 
qualification.     (Further  Whig  Memoirs,  61,  66.) 

After  Pitt's  death  in  January  1806,  the  sort  of  Coalition 
Government  of  "  All  the  Talents  "  that  Pitt  had  wished  for 
came  into  being.  The  King  had  to  submit  to  Lord  Grenville 
as  Prime  Minister  and  to  Fox  as  Foreign  Secretary,  together 
with  partisans  of  Lord  Sidmouth  (Addington).  For  Lord 
Grenville,  unfortunately,  the  King  had  an  "  insuperable  " 

79 


80  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

and  "  extreme  "  dislike  (Rose,  ii.  381,  384) ;  as  he  had  had  for 
his  father.  In  the  next  few  years  he  found  him  "  even  more 
offensive  than  Mr.  Fox  ever  was  "  (ib.  ii.  391),  for  after  Fox's 
death  in  September  1806,  Lord  Grenville  became  and  remained 
the  staunch  supporter  of  the  just  claims  of  the  Catholics. 

Lord  Castlereagh's  Memoirs  (iv.  379-92)  give  a  graphic 
account  of  the  struggle  which  ensued  between  the  King  and 
his  Ministers.  On  February  9,  1807,  Lord  Spencer  sent  the 
King  from  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  then  Lord-Lieutenant  of 
Ireland,  a  dispatch  on  behalf  of  the  Catholics,  asking  for 
some  assurance  of  relief  as  an  alternative  to  a  petition  to 
Parliament.  The  concessions  they  asked  for  were  the  removal 
of  restrictions  from  Catholic  military  service  and  from  pro- 
motion in  the  Army  ;  permission  to  serve  as  sheriffs  ;  and 
admission  to  the  Corporations.  In  the  view  of  the  Cabinet, 
divided  as  it  was  on  the  larger  measure  of  enfranchisement, 
the  concession  of  allowing  the  Catholics  and  Dissenters 
military  service  in  England  was  of  the  highest  importance 
to  the  safety  of  the  Empire  at  a  time  when  the  interminable 
war  called  for  as  large  a  supply  of  righting  material  as  could 
be  extorted  from  the  patient  population. 

But  the  King  remained  prejudiced  and  was  in  a  position 
to  indulge  his  prejudices.  He  replied  on  February  10  that 
he  could  not  but  "  express  the  most  serious  concern  that  any 
proposal  should  have  been  made  to  him  for  the  introduction 
of  a  clause  in  the  Mutiny  Bill  which  would  remove  a  restric- 
tion upon  the  Roman  Catholics,  forming  in  his  opinion  a 
most  essential  part  of  the  question,  and  so  strongly  con- 
nected with  the  whole  that  the  King  trusted  his  Parliament 
never  would,  under  any  circumstances,  agree  to  it.  His 
Majesty's  objections  did  not  result  from  any  slight  motive  ; 
they  had  never  varied ;  for  they  arose  from  the  principles 
by  which  he  had  been  guided  through  life,  and  to  which  he 
was  determined  to  adhere.  On  this  question  a  line  had  been 
drawn  from  which  he  could  not  depart.  He  had  hoped  that 
it  would  never  again  have  been  agitated."  (Castlereagh, 
iv.  879.) 

Lord  Grenville,  in  his  reply  of  the  same  day,  enclosing  a 
minute  from  the  Cabinet,  could  not  refrain  "  from  adding  (to 
the  Cabinet's   insistence  on  the  measure)  the  earnest  en- 


George  the  Conqueror  81 

treaties  of  an  attached  and  faithful  servant  "  that  the  King 
would  reconsider  the  matter.  He  pointed  out  the  incalculable 
advantage  which  would  result  from  enlarging  the  area  of 
recruitment,  and  finished  by  saying  that  "  nothing  but  a 
deep  impression  of  the  indispensable  necessity  of  some  step 
of  this  nature  at  the  present  moment,  and  the  peculiar 
advantage  of  the  measure  now  recommended  in  its 
tendency  to  prevent  difficulties  of  the  most  embarrassing 
nature  could  induce  him  to  think  himself  warranted  in 
recommending  it  with  such  extreme  earnestness." 

The  Cabinet  was  equally  insistent.  To  allow  Catholics 
in  England  to  hold  commissions  in  the  Army  was,  they  argued, 
only  an  extension  of  the  similar  liberty  that  had  been  granted 
in  1793  to  Catholics  in  Ireland.  They  represented  to  the 
King  that  "  the  formidable  dangers  which  now  surrounded 
the  country,  from  a  state  of  affairs  in  Europe  almost  un- 
paralelled,  appeared  to  them  to  impose  upon  them  the  indis- 
pensable duty  of  proposing  to  Parliament  to  unite  in  the 
common  cause  the  military  efforts  of  the  whole  population 
of  Your  Majesty's  empire,  and  to  secure  the  best  interests 
of  their  country  from  ultimately  sinking  under  the  increased 
preponderance  of  France."  They  feared  too  the  bad  im- 
pression which  refusal  would  cause  in  Ireland,  and  declared 
they  would  "  think  themselves  deeply  criminal  if  they 
could  disguise  this  peril  from  him." 

The  King  replied  on  February  12  that  "  however  painful 
he  had  found  it  to  reconcile  to  his  feelings  the  removal  of 
objections  to  any  proposal  "  remotely  connected  with  the 
Catholic  question,  he  would  not  prevent  his  Ministers  from 
submitting  the  clause  to  Parliament.  But,  whilst  so  far 
reluctantly  conceding,  he  deemed  it  necessary  to  declare 
that  he  could  not  go  one  step  further  ;  and  he  trusted  that 
this  proof  of  his  forbearance  would  secure  him  from  being  at 
a  future  period  distressed  by  any  further  proposal  connected 
with  this  question. 

Yet  the  theory  of  the  Constitution  is  that  the  King  acts 
on  the  advice  of  his  responsible  Ministers,  and  that  the  Royal 
veto  has  ceased  to  exist.  The  story  shows  that  George  III. 
cared  not  a  straw  for  his  responsible  Ministers,  and  that  he 
vetoed  whatever  measures  were  opposed  to  his  "  feelings." 
6 


82  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Such  measures  could  be  killed  at  their  birth  ;  if  they  were 
not,  they  could  always  be  killed  in  their  passage  through  the 
two  Houses.  But  the  King  never  considered  even  the  final 
veto  as  dead.  Writing  to  Lord  North  on  June  19,  1774, 
about  the  Quebec  Bill,  which  some  persons  desired  him  to 
veto,  he  said  :  "  Though  I  hope  the  Crown  will  ever  be  able 
to  prevent  a  Bill  it  thinks  detrimental  to  be  thrown  out  in 
one  or  other  House  of  Parliament,  without  making  use  of  its 
right  of  refusing  its  assent,  yet  I  shall  never  consent  to  using 
any  expression  that  tends  to  establish  that  at  no  time  the 
making  use  of  that  power  is  necessary."  (North,  Letters,  i. 
192.) 

The  same  day  (February  12)  the  Cabinet  sent  the  King 
another  dispatch  from  Ireland,  which  contained  the  news  that 
an  influential  meeting  in  Ireland  had  decided  to  petition 
Parliament  :  "a  circumstance  of  great  difficulty  and  em- 
barrassment in  every  view  of  the  question."  They  hoped  for 
beneficial  results  from  the  measure  he  had  consented  to,  and 
disclaimed  any  wish  to  involve  him  in  anything  painful  to  his 
feelings. 

On  the  evening  of  March  2,  the  draft  of  the  clauses  in  the 
Mutiny  Bill  on  the  admission  of  Catholics  to  the  Army  was 
sent  to  the  King,  and  returned  by  him  next  morning  without 
objection  raised.  On  March  4,  Lord  Howick,  believing 
himself  to  have  the  King's  consent,  brought  the  clauses  before 
Parliament,  and  a  week  later,  the  King  denied  having  given 
such  consent. 

The  Opposition  thus  saw  its  chance  of  upsetting  the  Govern- 
ment, and  of  doing  so  by  the  personal  influence  of  the  King. 
On  March  12,  the  Duke  of  Portland,  the  Whig  of  olden  days, 
wrote  to  the  King  :  "  I  must  fairly  state  to  Your  Majesty 
that  your  wishes  must  be  distinctly  known,  and  that  your 
present  Ministers  should  not  have  any  pretext  for  equivocating 
on  the  subject,  on  any  ground  whatever,  to  pretend  ignorance 
of  Your  Majesty's  sentiments  and  determination,  not  only 
to  withhold  your  sanction  to  the  present  measure,  but  to 
use  all  your  influence  in  resisting  it."  If  His  Majesty  saw 
fit  to  change  his  Ministers,  the  Duke  offered  himself. 
(Malmesbury,  iv.  360.)  On  or  about  the  same  day,  the 
Government  offered  to  withdraw  the  Bill,  on  the  compromise 


George  the  Conqueror  83 

that  the  Irish  Catholic  petition  should  be  received  and  dis- 
cussed, and  that  Ministers  should  reserve  the  right  to  bring 
forward  in  the  future  any  motions  they  pleased  for  removing 
restrictions  from  the  Catholics,  (ib.  iv.  371.)  On  March 
15  the  Government  withdrew  its  Bill  unconditionally,  but 
not  without  drawing  up  a  minute,  which  protested  strongly 
to  the  King  against  his  action.  In  it  they  said  :  "  In  stating 
to  Parliament  the  determination  to  make  this  very  painful 
sacrifice  to  what  they  conceive  to  be  their  painful  duty,  they 
trust  Your  Majesty  will  see  the  indispensable  necessity  of 
their  expressing,  with  the  same  openness  by  which  their 
language  on  that  subject  has  been  uniformly  marked,  the 
strong  persuasion  which  each  of  them  individually  entertains 
of  the  advantages  which  would  result  to  the  empire  from  a 
different  course  of  policy  towards  the  Catholics  of  Ireland. 
These  opinions  they  have  never  concealed  from  Your  Majesty. 
They  continue  strongly  impressed  with  them,  and  it  is 
absolutely  indispensable  to  their  public  character  that  they 
should  openly  avow  them,  both  on  the  present  occasion  and 
in  the  possible  event  of  the  Catholic  Petition  in  Parliament, 
a  discussion  which  they  have  all  equally  endeavoured  to 
prevent."  They  added  that  they  could  not  look  on  Ireland, 
the  only  vulnerable  part  of  the  empire,  without  the  greatest 
uneasiness  ;  it  was  essential  that  the  deference  which  they 
had  felt  it  their  duty  to  show  to  the  opinions  and  feelings 
of  His  Majesty,  should  not  be  understood  as  restraining  them 
from  submitting  from  time  to  time,  for  His  Majesty's  decision, 
such  measures  about  Ireland  as  "  circumstances  should 
require."  And  they  ended  with  a  strong  assurance  of  their 
"  sincere  and  anxious  regard  for  His  Majesty's  personal  ease 
ana  comfort." 

Speaking  of  this  surrender,  Lord  Holland  says  :  "  This 
concession  was  very  painful  to  me.  I  passed  the  most  un- 
pleasant night  that  I  ever  experienced  from  political  anxiety. 
The  surrender  of  our  opinion  was,  as  I  then  thought  and  still 
think,  quite  wrong."     (Whig  Memoirs,  ii.  202.) 

The  King's  triumph  was  complete,  and  on  March  17  came 
the  conqueror's  reply.  He  commended  the  deference  shown 
to  his  feelings,  but  deprecated  his  Ministers  as  individuals 
submitting  to  Parliament  opinions  "  known  to  be  so  decidedly 


84  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

contrary  to  his  principles.  He  thought  it  due  to  himself 
to  declare  at  once  most  unequivocally  that  upon  this  subject 
his  sentiments  could  never  change  ;  that  he  could  never 
agree  to  any  concessions  to  the  Catholics  which  his  confidential 
servants  might  in  future  propose  to  him  ;  and  that,  under 
these  circumstances,  and  after  what  had  passed,  his  mind 
could  not  be  at  ease  unless  he  should  receive  a  positive 
assurance  from  them,  which  should  effectually  relieve  him 
from  all  future  apprehension."  He  requested  that  their 
determination  should  be  "  stated  on  paper." 

The  pretensions  of  despotism  never  reached  a  higher 
watermark  in  England.  As  Lord  Holland  wrote  :W'  He 
required  an  assurance  in  writing  from  the  Ministers  that  they 
would  never  press  upon  him,  in  future,  any  measure  connected 
with  the  Catholic  question  ;  in  other  words,  that  his  advisers 
would  never  give  him  advice  upon  one  great  and  important 
branch  of  public  affairs,  in  their  view  of  the  subject  involving 
the  character,  and  even  safety  of  the  empire."  (Whig 
Memoirs,  ii.  203.) 

Lord  Grenville,  on  March  18,  sent  the  Conqueror  the 
Cabinet's  reply  drawn  up  the  day  before,  on  receipt  of  the 
King's  letter.  They  reminded  him  that  when  they  accepted 
office  no  such  assurance  in  limitation  of  their  duties  as 
Ministers  had  been  required  of  them  ;  that  had  such  assur- 
ance been  demanded,  they  would  have  expressed  the  absolute 
impossibility  of  thus  fettering  the  free  exercise  of  their 
judgment.  "  Those  who  are  entrusted  by  Your  Majesty 
with  the  administration  of  your  extensive  Empire  are  bound 
by  every  obligation  to  submit  to  Your  Majesty  without 
reserve  the  best  advice  which  they  can  frame  to  meet  the 
various  exigencies  and  dangers  of  the  times.  The  situation 
of  Ireland  appears  to  Your  Majesty's  servants  to  constitute 
the  most  formidable  part  of  the  present  difficulties  of  the 
Empire.  This  subject  must,  as  they  conceive,  require  a 
continued  and  vigilant  attention,  and  a  repeated  considera- 
tion of  every  fresh  circumstance  which  may  call  for  the  inter- 
position of  Your  Majesty's  Government,  or  of  Parliament. 
In  forbearing  to  urge  any  further,  while  employed  in  Your 
Majesty's  service,  a  measure  which  would,  in  their  judgment, 
have  tended  to  compose  the  present  uneasiness  in  Ireland, 


George  the  Conqueror  85 

and  have  been  productive  of  material  benefit  to  the  empire, 
they  humbly  submit  to  Your  Majesty  that  they  have  gone 
to  the  utmost  possible  limits  of  their  public  duty,  but  that 
it  would  be  deeply  criminal  in  them,  with  the  general  opinions 
which  they  entertain  on  the  subject,  to  bind  themselves  to 
withhold  from  Your  Majesty,  under  all  the  various  circum- 
stances which  may  arise,  those  counsels  which  may  eventually 
appear  to  them  indispensably  necessary  for  the  peace  and 
tranquillity  of  Ireland,  and  for  defeating  the  enterprises  of 
the  enemy  against  the  very  existence  of  Your  Majesty's 
Empire.  Your  Majesty's  servants  must  ever  deeply  regret 
that  any  difficulty  should  arise  on  their  part  in  giving  the 
most  prompt  obedience  to  any  demand  which  Your  Majesty 
considers  as  indispensable  to  the  ease  of  Your  Majesty's 
mind.  But  it  is  not  possible  for  them,  consistently  with 
any  sense  of  those  obligations  which  must  always  attach  on 
the  sworn  councillors  of  Your  Majesty,  to  withdraw  a  state- 
ment which  was  not  made  without  the  most  anxious  considera- 
tion of  every  circumstance  which  could  be  suggested  by  their 
earnest  desire  for  Your  Majesty's  ease,  comfort,  and  happi- 
ness ;  or  to  give  assurances  which  would  impose  upon  them 
a  restraint  incompatible  with  the  faithful  discharge  of  the 
most  important  duty  which  they  owe  to  Your  Majesty." 
(ib.  ii.  270-320.) 

Lord  Grenville,  writing  to  his  brother,  Lord  Buckingham, 
on  March  17,  thus  expressed  himself  :  "  We  have  heard 
much  on  this  Catholic  question  of  the  King's  coronation 
oath.  He  appears  to  have  forgotten  that  our  oath  as  Privy 
Councillors,  as  well  as  our  manifest  duty,  obliges  us  to  give 
him  true  counsel  to  the  best  of  our  judgment.  How  is  this 
oath  and  duty  to  be  fulfilled  if  on  the  affairs  of  that  part  of 
his  kingdom  which  is  exposed  to  the  greatest  danger,  both 
within  and  without,  we  bind  ourselves  by  a  previous  promise 
not  to  give  him  such  advice  as  in  our  judgment  is  best  calcu- 
lated to  meet  the  evil  ;  nay,  not  even  to  bring  forward  any 
advice  on  the  subject  connected  with  it."  (Buckingham's 
Court  and  Cabinets  of  George  III.,  iv.  143.) 

This  is  surely  the  common  sense  of  the  matter.  Conflict- 
ing accounts  have  been  given  of  the  quarrel  between  the 
King  and  the  Cabinet  of  "  All  the  Talents  "  ;    and  it  may 


86  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

well  be  that  the  trouble  arose  rather  from  a  misunderstanding 
between  George  III.  and  Lord  Howick  than  from  that  cool 
duplicity  with  which  Lord  Holland  charges  the  King's 
memory.  It  may  also  well  be  that  the  measure  itself  was 
not  of  the  importance  that  the  Cabinet  assigned  to  it.  Never- 
theless, the  story  under  any  aspect  shows  how  very  far  from 
the  truth  is  the  popular  tradition  that  the  King  in  our  Con- 
stitution has  no  will  apart  from  his  Ministers'  will.  Here 
we  have  a  case  where  the  Ministers'  will  lay  in  one  direction, 
and  the  King's  in  another,  and  where  the  King's  prevailed  ; 
where  the  King's  claim  to  restrict  his  Ministers'  initiative 
on  one  subject  was  clearly  one  that  might  be  claimed  over 
all  subjects.  The  King's  action  was  a  real  bid  for  a  practical 
despotism,  and  the  stand  made  by  Grenville  and  his  Cabinet 
against  so  outrageous  a  claim  is  one  of  the  most  pleasing 
incidents  in  the  history  of  the  struggle  for  liberty.  But,  of 
course,  it  brought  the  Ministry  to  an  end.  Ministers  saw 
the  King  on  March  18,  and  explained  their  inability  to 
give  the  pledge  he  had  demanded  of  them.  According  to 
Lord  Colchester,  the  Grenville  Government  neither  resigned 
nor  was  dismissed  (ii.  104) ;  it  simply  died  from  the  cold 
blast  of  the  Royal  displeasure.  In  vain  the  Chancellor  had 
warned  the  King  against  trying  to  extort  the  pledge  "  never 
under  any  circumstances  to  propose  to  the  Closet  any 
measures  of  concession  to  the  Catholics  or  anything  connected 
with  it "  ;  had  told  him  that  he  was  on  the  brink  of  a 
precipice,  and  that  if  he  dismissed  his  Ministers  he  would 
never  know  another  hour's  tranquillity.  The  King,  though 
deeply  agitated,  thanked  him  for  his  honesty,  but  despised 
his  advice.  (Romilly,  ii.  189.)  The  Ministry  came  to  an  end 
on  March  25,  and  the  Duke  of  Portland  came  again  into 
power. 

Never  was  Minister  more  justly  disappointed  than  Gren- 
ville, whose  hope  had  been  "  to  unite  Ireland  in  heart  and 
affection  with  England  "  (November  25,  1808,  Buckingham's 
George  III.,  iv.  281),  and  one  can  sympathise  with  his  com- 
plaint of  the  difficulty  for  a  Minister  to  govern  the  country 
"  with  the  certainty  that  a  Court  intrigue  would  be  incessantly 
at  work  with  ample  means  of  depriving  him  of  all  power  to 
be  of  real  use."     {ib.  iv.  289.)     "  What  hope  could  there  be 


George  the  Conqueror  87 

of  success,"  he  writes  to  his  brother  on  September  3,  1909, 
"  with  the  Court  against  us  ?  "  (ib.  iv.  355). 

But  there  was  one  subject  on  which  the  Court  failed  of 
success  ;  for  on  the  very  day  the  Ministry  fell  the  Royal 
assent  was  given  to  the  Slave  Trade  Abolition  Bill.  When 
the  agitation  against  this  iniquitous  traffic  began  in  1788, 
Lord  Shelburne  quoted  the  opposition  to  it,  and  the  en- 
thusiasm for  its  abolition  of  the  majority  in  the  towns  that 
most  profited  by  it,  on  the  principles  of  morality,  freedom, 
and  commercial  honour,  as  proof  of  the  general  liberalism 
of  public  opinion  at  that  time.  (April  7,  1788.)  But,  though 
Pitt  was  strong  against  the  trade,  and  supported  its  abolition 
with  his  highest  eloquence,  he  was  opposed  in  his  own  Cabinet 
by  Dundas,  Thurlow,  and  Lord  Hawkesbury,  and,  above  all, 
by  the  King.  It  was  in  deference  to  the  King  that  he  suffered 
the  continuance  of  the  trade  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  (Lecky, 
v.  344.)  A  difficulty,  says  Clarkson,  more  insuperable  than 
opposition  within  the  Cabinet,  occurred  in  1791,  "  much 
too  delicate  to  be  mentioned,"  after  which  all  Pitt's  efforts 
were  useless.  (Slave  Trade,  ii.  506.)  Nevertheless,  his  most 
eloquent  speech  in  Parliament  against  the  trade  was  in 
1792. 

The  King  and  the  Court  stoutly  resisted  the  progress  of 
the  measure.  When  the  Duke  of  Clarence  opposed  it  in  the 
Lords  in  1807,  he  spoke  for  all  the  Royal  Family,  except  the 
Duke  of  Gloucester.  (Buckingham,  George  III.,  150-2.) 
Lord  Holland  testifies  that  the  King  and  the  Prince  were 
as  hostile  as  ever  to  the  measure.  (Whig  Memoirs,  ii.  57.) 
Yet,  on  October  25,  1809,  when  Sir  Samuel  Romilly  attended 
a  Jubilee  service  in  Durham  Cathedral,  he  was  provoked 
"  to  a  degree  of  indignation  he  could  ill  restrain  "  by  the 
gross  adulation  of  the  preacher,  who  ascribed  to  the  King 
the  merit  of  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade,  when  for  years 
his  personal  opposition  to  it,  supported  by  that  of  his  friends 
in  both  Houses,  had  been  the  chief  obstacle  to  its  being 
carried,  (ii.  302.)  But  sycophancy  has  been  the  cause  of 
many  historical  legends. 

On  April  9,  1807,  there  was  a  long  debate  which  did  not 
close  till  6  a.m.  on  Brand's  resolution  that  it  was  contrary 
to  the  first  duties  of  Ministers  to  restrain  themselves  by  any 


88  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

express  or  implied  pledge  not  to  offer  the  King  any  advice 
which  the  circumstances  of  the  moment  might  require. 
But  the  House  passed  to  the  order  of  the  day,  and  so  dis- 
posed of  the  resolution  by  258  to  226.  As  Lord  Colchester 
said  :  "  The  issue  of  the  debate  was  highly  important  to 
the  monarchy  as  well  as  to  the  reigning  King  ;  "  the  House 
being  unwilling  to  call  the  King,  as  it  were,  to  the  bar  to 
pronounce  on  the  merits  or  demerits  of  his  personal  conduct 
in  conversation  or  correspondence  between  him  and  his 
Ministers,  or  on  the  propriety  of  his  motives  in  changing 
them.  "  The  House  agreed  on  all  sides  that  no  pledges 
should  be  required  from  Ministers  that  they  would  abstain 
from  advice  of  any  sort,"  whilst  refusing  to  consider  the 
specific  case  in  which  the  King  had  attempted  to  extort  such 
a  pledge.  {Diary,  ii.  119.)  The  King  commended  the  good 
sense  the  House  had  shown  ;  it  had  practically  sanctioned 
an  extension  of  his  prerogative,  of  which  he  made  yet  another 
attempt  to  avail  himself  before  his  final  and  total  incapacity 
fell  upon  him. 

As  so  narrow  a  majority  promised  no  long  tenure  to  the 
Duke  of  Portland's  Ministry,  a  dissolution  was  resolved  on, 
and  in  the  ensuing  General  Election  of  June  1807  corruption 
reigned  supreme.  The  new  Ministry  bought  up  all  the  seats 
they  could,  at  very  high  prices,  and  the  King  was  believed  to 
contribute  a  large  sum  from  his  privy  purse.  (Romilly,  ii. 
206.)  The  result  answered  expectations,  for  the  Govern- 
ment majority,  which  had  been  155  before  the  election,  rose 
to  350  after  it — so  potent  was  the  cry  of  Church  and  King, 
and  the  influence  of  gold.  No  small  part  of  the  money  which 
the  country  lavished  on  the  King  was  turned  habitually  to 
its  own  corruption  and  enslavement.  But  the  King  stuck 
to  his  idea  of  a  pledge.  During  the  interregnum  between  the 
dying  Duke  of  Portland's  resignation  on  September  3,  1809, 
and  Perceval's  appointment  on  November  2,  the  King  wrote 
Perceval  a  long  letter,  authorising  him  to  make  overtures 
to  Lord  Grey  and  Lord  Grenville  to  join  in  a  Ministry  under 
himself  and  Lord  Liverpool,  lamenting  that  he  thus  had  to 
have  recourse  to  men  from  whom  he  had  received  such 
injurious  treatment,  and  expressing  his  strong , displeasure  at 
their  conduct.     In  conversation  he  expressed  a  wish  that 


George  the  Conqueror  89 

these  Lords  should  first  give  a  pledge  not  to  raise  the  Catholic 
question,  but  Perceval  protested  that  it  was  utterly  im- 
possible for  them  to  do  so,  without  losing  all  character  with 
the  public,  and  advised  the  King  to  rely  on  the  safety  of 
a  mixed  and  divided  Cabinet.  To  this  the  King  agreed, 
but  not  without  a  strong  assurance  that  he  would  rather 
abandon  the  Crown  than  consent  to  Catholic  emancipation. 
(Rose,  ii.  394,  395,  September  30,  1809.) 

When  the  great  and  final  cloud  fell  on  the  King's  brain 
in  1810,  and  the  problem  of  the  Catholics  passed  to  the 
Regent,  the  pretext  was  that  it  was  indelicate  to  deal  with 
it  during  the  King's  life.  Whereon  Lord  Grenville  com- 
mented bitterly  on  January  6,  1812  :  "  Will  the  rest  of  the 
world  stand  still  for  him,  and  will  Ireland  be  as  easy  to  be 
settled  then  as  it  would  be  even  now,  when  it  is  about  ten 
times  more  difficult  than  it  was  ten  or  twelve  years  ago  ?  " 
(Buckingham's  Regency,  i.  179.) 

So  George  III.  passed  from  the  stage,  to  the  last  true  to 
his  mother's  exhortation  to  show  himself  a  King.  During 
fifty  years  he  had  triumphed  over  Ministry  after  Ministry. 
His  patriotism  had  been  as  sincere  as  it  had  often  been 
mistaken.  His  abilities  had  been  great,  but  his  will  greater. 
He  had  fought  long  and  gallantly  for  Prerogative,  and  had 
ended  a  victor.  His  enthusiasm  for  the  Constitution  had 
come  near  to  adoration.  Nor  can  one  wonder,  seeing  how 
much  the  Constitution  had  placed  in  his  hands  all  the  trump 
cards  in  the  rubber  of  politics.  Yet  to  the  Constitution  he 
had  been  a  martyr,  patient  under  a  burden  that  weighed 
him  down.  On  a  summary  retrospect  of  his  reign  it  would 
be  difficult  to  pronounce  whether,  under  the  Constitution  he 
loved  so  well,  himself  or  his  subjects  had  suffered  the  most. 


REIGN   II:    GEORGE    IV 

CHAPTER    I 

Regency  Troubles 

One  element  that  makes  for  difficulty  in  a  Constitutional 
Monarchy  is  the  influence  of  the  Heir-Apparent,  whose 
position  and  opinions,  as  a  source  of  future  favours,  are  often 
scarcely  of  less  importance  than  those  of  the  reigning  monarch 
himself.  This  cause  of  conflict  and  divided  counsels  marred 
the  whole  reign  of  George  III.,  owing  to  the  notorious  diverg- 
ence of  political  opinion  between  himself  and  the  Prince 
of  Wales.  Both  Ministries  and  policies  depended  entirely 
on  the  pure  chance  of  the  King's  keeping  his  health. 

This  became  very  manifest  when  in  October  1810 
George  III.  fell  ill  for  the  last  time  and  the  old  difficulty 
of  1788  about  the  Regency  revived.  Perceval,  as  Prime 
Minister  at  the  time,  ultimately  carried  the  old  restrictions 
on  the  Regent,  whilst  the  Whigs  adhered  to  their  old  principle 
of  the  Prince  of  Wales'  indefeasible  right  to  the  Regency. 
On  December  19, 1810,  both  the  Prince  and  his  seven  brothers 
protested  against  the  restrictions.  These  Princes  were  a 
constant  difficulty.  The  Duke  of  Wellington,  talking  with 
Creevey  on  July  17,  1818,  in  allusion  to  the  Government's 
defeats  in  the  previous  session  over  proposed  additions  to 
the  establishments  of  the  Dukes  of  Clarence,  Kent,  and 
Cumberland  on  their  marriages,  remarked  that  these  Princes 
were  "  the  damnedest  millstones  about  the  necks  of  any 
Government  that  could  be  imagined.  They  have  insulted — 
personally  insulted — two-thirds  of  the  gentlemen  of  England, 
and  how  can  it  be  wondered  at  that  they  take  their  revenge 
upon  them  when  they  get  them  in  the  House  of  Commons  ? 
It  is  their  only  opportunity,  and  I  think,  by  God,  they  are 


92  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

quite  right  to  use  it."  (i.  277.)  But  despite  the  royal  opposi- 
tion the  restrictions  came  into  force  in  February  1811,  and 
continued  in  force  till  the  following  February. 

It  was  expected  that  the  Regent  would  lose  no  time  in 
displacing  Perceval's  Government  in  favour  of  a  Whig 
Ministry,  and  the  places  were  all  arranged  ;  but  an  intricate 
intrigue  began,  in  which  Sheridan  played  a  leading  part,  and 
of  which  the  result  was  to  keep  Lords  Grey  and  Grenville  out, 
and  Perceval  in.  On  February  4,  1811,  a  letter  to  Perceval 
from  the  Prince  informed  him  that  the  decision  to  continue 
with  him  as  Prime  Minister  was  due  "  only  to  the  irresistible 
impulse  of  filial  duty  and  affection  to  his  beloved  and  afflicted 
father."  Wilberforce  in  his  Diary  assigns  the  Prince's  decision 
to  the  advice  of  Mrs.  Fitzherbert  and  Lady  Hertford,  (iii. 
494.)  The  Queen  also  seems  to  have  had  a  share  in  the 
intrigue.  The  Prince's  Whig  principles  and  his  Whig  friends 
went  to  the  winds.  There  had  been  a  time  when  the  Prince 
had  warmly  cultivated  the  friendship  of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk, 
but  the  Duke  under  the  Regency  fell  into  disfavour  at  Court 
for  his  opinions,  and  the  Regent  "  slighted  and  shunned  the 
Duke  as  well  as  the  rest  of  his  early  friends."  (Romilly,  iii. 
67.) 

On  February  13,  1811,  the  Regent  wrote  his  celebrated 
letter  to  the  Duke  of  York  to  express  the  wish  that  some  of 
those  persons  with  whom  the  early  habits  of  his  life  had  been 
formed  would  strengthen  his  hands  and  form  part  of  his 
Government  ;  and  the  Duke  was  authorised  to  communicate 
this  wish  to  Lord  Grey,  who,  he  had  no  doubt,  would  make 
it  known  to  Lord  Grenville.  It  is  probable  that  the  wish 
was  sincere,  and  that  the  Regent  wished  them  to  strengthen 
the  existing  Government,  or  perhaps  to  form  a  new  one.  But 
the  two  Lords  thoroughly  mistrusted  the  Regent.  "  I  have 
been  betrayed  once  by  the  King,"  wrote  Lord  Grenville  to 
his  brother,  "  and  I  have  no  taste  of  affording  to  his  son 
the  same  opportunity,  when  I  have  so  little  cause  to  doubt 
that  he  has  the  same  disposition."  (Buckingham's  Regency, 
i.  224.)  They  considered  the  Regent's  mode  of  approach  to 
them  as  "  an  unworthy  trick  of  attempting  to  separate  them," 
and  were  highly  incensed.  They  resented  the  notion  that 
they  could  co-operate  with  Perceval  at  all ;  for,  as  Romilly 


Regency  Troubles  93 

wrote,  "  nothing  could  contribute  more  effectually  to  destroy 
all  confidence  in  all  public  men  than  so  base  and  unprincipled 
a  coalition  "  between  men  who  differed  so  widely  on  the 
Catholic  question  ;  they  expressed  themselves  in  their 
answer  to  the  Duke  as  "  firmly  persuaded  of  the  necessity  of 
a  total  change  of  the  present  system  of  the  Government  in 
Ireland,  and  of  the  immediate  repeal  of  those  civil  disabilities 
under  which  so  large  a  portion  of  His  Majesty's  subjects  still 
laboured  on  account  of  their  religious  opinions."  Wherefore 
they  declined  the  offer. 

The  story  goes  that  when  the  Regent  informed  the  Cabinet 
of  his  intended  proposal  to  the  two  Lords,  Perceval  undertook 
to  draw  it  up,  but  that  when  it  reached  Carlton  House  the 
Regent  would  not  have  it  at  any  price  ;  he  complained  most 
sarcastically  of  Perceval's  composition  and  style.  When 
Lord  Eldon,  who  was  the  bearer  of  the  letter,  suggested  that 
Perceval  would  gladly  amend  it,  the  Regent  replied  that  "  he 
hoped  he  was  too  much  of  a  gentleman  to  interfere  with  any 
man's  style  ;  that  it  was  a  great  misfortune  to  Mr.  Perceval 
to  write  in  one  that  would  disgrace  a  respectable  washer- 
woman, but  that  he  could  not  set  up  for  his  schoolmaster." 
He  added  that  Perceval  wished  the  overture  to  be  refused, 
but  that  he  himself  wished  it  to  succeed. 

And  this  seems  possible  ;  for  it  was  the  opinion  of  the 
narrator  of  the  episode  that  the  Regent  was  in  earnest  ;  that 
the  rejection  of  his  proposal  was  too  peremptory,  and  that, 
had  the  Lords  in  question  met  the  Prince,  Perceval's  power 
"  would  have  crumbled  into  dust."  And  considering  what 
ensued,  and  that  the  shelving  of  the  Catholic  claims  darkened 
English  politics  for  the  next  seventeen  years,  and  were  then 
only  granted  to  avert  civil  war,  one  cannot  but  share  the 
writer's  regret  at  the  course  which  was  taken. 

The  Regent  was  most  indignant  at  the  reception  his  letter 
had  met  with.  Lord  Grenville,  he  declared,  was  the  only  one 
who  had  behaved  like  a  gentleman  and  had  not  publicly 
insulted  him.  He  was  reported  to  have  said  that  he  could 
easily  forgive  Lord  Grenville,  but  that  he  would  rather  ab- 
dicate than  see  Lord  Grey  or  Tierney  in  his  service,  (ib.  i. 
298,  311.)  Lord  Holland  says  that  the  Regent  never  con- 
cealed  his   personal   dislike    for   Lord   Grey   (Further   Whig 


94  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Memoirs,  144)  ;  it  was  then  an  animosity  of  twenty-seven 
years'  standing.  Creevey,  writing  to  his  wife  on  May  25, 1812, 
says  :  "  It  is  true  that  Princey  told  Wellington  that  Grey  and 
Grenville  were  a  couple  of  scoundrels."     (i.  157.) 

But  the  Regent  was  impartial  in  his  dislikes.  He  could 
as  little  bear  the  Tory  Lord  Sidmouth  as  the  Liberal  Lord 
Grey.  When  on  February  1,  1812,  Perceval  suggested  to 
him  the  addition  of  Lord  Sidmouth  and  his  friends  to  the 
Ministry,  he  exclaimed  :  "  Is  it  possible,  Mr.  Perceval,  that 
you  are  ignorant  of  my  feelings  and  sentiments  towards  that 
person  ?  I  now  tell  you,  I  never  will  have  confidence  in  him 
or  in  any  person  who  presses  him  upon  me."  When  a  few 
days  later  Perceval  returned  to  the  charge  and  pressed  the 
Regent  to  authorise  him  to  declare  that  he  had  the  Prince's 
entire  and  exclusive  confidence,  in  whatever  quarter  he  might 
have  occasion  of  such  authority,  the  Prince  positively  and 
repeatedly  refused  "  in  a  tone  of  sarcasm  and  disgust  that 
Mr.  Perceval  would  not  easily  forget."  {Buckingham,  i.  219.) 
It  can  have  been  no  easy  berth  to  be  Prime  Minister  to  the 
Regent,  nor  can  one  be  surprised  at  Lord  Grenville's  reluct- 
ance to  become  his  chief  servant.  For  who  could  have 
succeeded  under  such  conditions  ? 

The  following  story  illustrates  the  footing  on  which  the 
Regent  stood  towards  his  Prime  Minister.  One  day  he 
mentioned  to  Perceval  his  intention  of  giving  the  bishopric 
of  Oxford  to  William  Jackson.  "  On  that  point,"  objected 
Perceval,  "  I  am  positively  pledged."  "  Positively  pledged, 
Mr.  Perceval  ?  "  said  the  Regent.  "  Positively  pledged  to 
give  away  one  of  my  bishoprics  ?  I  don't  understand  you." 
"  I  mean  that  it  was  the  King's  positive  and  declared  intention 
to  give  it  to  Dean  Legge."  "  Mr.  Perceval,"  replied  the 
Regent,  "  if  I  had  any  direct  intimation  of  what  was  really 
the  King's  wish  on  the  subject,  I  would  not  only  make  Dean 
Legge  Bishop  of  Oxford,  but  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  if  it 
were  in  my  power  ;  but  as  this  is  not  the  case  I  shall  make 
my  own  Bishop,  and  I  desire  never  more  to  hear  what  were 
the  King's  wishes  on  such  subjects  through  a  third  person." 
(Buckingham's  Regency,  i.  171,  January  4,  1812.) 

When  Perceval  was  shot  by  Belli ngham  in  the  House  of 
Commons  on  May  11,  1812,  so  great  was  the  revulsion  of 


Regency  Troubles  95 

feeling  against  the  policy  of  repression  at  home  and  war 
abroad  with  which  he  was  identified  that  stocks  rose  nearly 
two  per  cent.  (ib.  ii.  298.)  Sir  Samuel  Romilly  wrote : 
"  The  most  savage  expressions  of  joy  and  exultation  were 
heard  in  the  streets  and  about  the  avenues  of  the  House, 
with  regrets  that  others  had  not  shared  his  fate."  (iii.  35.) 
At  Nottingham  a  mob  paraded  the  streets  with  drums  and 
banners  exulting  in  the  deed  (ib.  iii.  297) ;  to  such  depths 
had  the  country  fallen  under  a  system  which  gave  virtually 
supreme  power  to  a  Prince  like  the  Regent.  Perceval's  death 
let  loose  the  hurricane.  The  Cabinet  wished  for  overtures 
to  be  made  to  Lord  Wellesley  and  Canning,  or  to  Lords 
Grenville  and  Grey.  On  May  21,  1812,  the  House  of  Com- 
mons carried  by  a  majority  of  four  an  address  in  favour  of 
a  firmer  Administration,  which  caused  the  momentary  re- 
signation of  the  Cabinet.  Then  negotiations  of  a  confusing 
nature  took  place  with  the  King,  during  which  it  seemed 
likely  at  one  moment  that  Lord  Wellesley,  at  another  that 
Lord  Moira,  would  emerge  as  Prime  Minister.  But  on  June  3 
Lord  Wellesley  gave  it  up,  powerless  against  the  "  dreadful 
animosities  "  that  prevailed  among  the  leading  men. 

The  Regent  was  nearly  driven  to  distraction.  Creevey 
describes  how  on  May  25,  late  at  night,  the  Regent  sent  for 
Lord  Moira  "  and  flung  himself  upon  his  mercy.  Such  a 
scene  I  never  heard  of.  The  young  monarch  cried  loud  and 
long — in  short,  he  seems  to  have  been  very  nearly  in  con- 
vulsions." (i.  158.)  The  next  day  Creevey  met  Sheridan, 
who  described  the  Prince's  state  of  perturbation  of  mind  as 
"beyond  anything  he  had  ever  seen."  (ib.  i.  159.)  But 
the  rivalries  and  jealousies  of  competing  politicians  were 
indeed  severe  tests  for  any  man's  brain.  In  an  interview 
with  Lord  Wellesley  on  May  25,  whilst  expressing  still  his 
sympathy  with  the  Catholic  claims,  he  declared  that  nothing 
could  ever  induce  him  to  employ  the  Opposition,  which 
he  abused  with  "  outrageous  violence  "  ;  for,  though  he 
had  no  objection  to  one  or  two  of  them  as  individuals, 
as  a  body  he  would  rather  abdicate  the  Regency  than 
"  ever  come  into  contact  with  them."  "  The  Prince,"  wrote 
Fremantle  on  May  28,  1812,  "  by  all  accounts  continues  in 
the  same  state  of  helplessness  and  irresolution  in  which  he 


96  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

has  passed  the  last  week."  (Buckingham,  i.  322.)  "  Never 
was  there  such  a  state  of  things  seen.  The  violence  and 
the  contempt  expressed  of  the  Prince  Regent  are  beyond 
all  imagination  and  are  truly  shocking  to  hear  of."  (ib. 
i.  335.)     Real  anarchy  reigned. 

It  was  the  same  old  difficulty  as  in  the  days  of  the  Regent's 
father  :  that  of  reconciling  the  responsible  Government  of 
the  country  with  the  secret  irresponsible  Government  of 
favourites  behind  the  throne.  Fox  had  opposed  the  public 
funeral  voted  for  Pitt  in  January  1806,  on  the  ground  that 
his  dead  rival  had  supported  a  system  of  government  which 
had  unfortunately  prevailed  throughout  the  whole  of  George 
III.'s  reign  ;  "  that  of  invisible  influence,  more  powerful 
than  the  public  servants  of  the  Crown."  (Colchester,  ii.  31.) 
Nor  had  things  improved  in  the  last  six  years.  Hence  some 
plain  speaking  on  the  subject  in  both  Houses.  In  the 
Commons  Lord  Lyttleton  described  it  as  notorious  "  that  the 
Regent  was  surrounded  with  favourites  and,  as  it  were, 
hemmed  in  with  minions,  not  one  of  whom  was  of  any  char- 
acter." In  the  Lords  on  March  19,  1812,  Lord  Darnley  said 
that  "  the  continuance  of  Ministers  in  office  depended  on  a 
breath — upon  advisers  not  avowed.  They  rested  upon  per- 
sons not  officially  known  in  the  House — upon  persons  who, 
for  their  own  selfish  objects,  would  poison  the  royal  ear, 
and  who,  if  allowed  to  remain,  would  prove  the  destruction 
either  of  the  Prince  or  the  country."  (Buckingham's 
Regency,  i.  338.) 

But  Lord  Grey  expressed  himself  with  still  more  disagree- 
able clearness :  "  There  existed  an  unseen  and  pestilent 
influence  behind  the  throne,  which  it  would  be  the  duty  of 
Parliament  to  brand  with  some  signal  mark  of  condemnation. 
It  was  the  determination  of  himself  and  his  friends  not  to 
accept  office  without  coming  to  an  understanding  with 
Parliament  for  the  abolition  of  this  destructive  influence." 
(ib.  i.  339.) 

The  Prince  took  great  offence  at  this  speech.  On  May  31, 
1812,  the  Duke  of  York,  at  the  instance  of  and  in  company 
with  Lord  Moira,  called  on  his  brother  to  try  to  soften  down 
his  "  twenty-seven  years'  animosity  to  Lord  Grey."  The 
Prince  was  very  violent  "  and  much  ill  blood  was  the  issue 


Regency  Troubles  97 

of  this  conference."  He  said  at  last  to  Lord  Moira  that 
before  he  would  consent  to  the  admission  of  Lord  Grey  to 
his  counsels,  he  must  have  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  a 
phrase  Lord  Grey  had  used  in  his  seat,  namely,  "  of  a  certain 
pestilent  secret  influence  which  must  be  got  rid  of."  But 
the  Prince  so  far  got  over  his  personal  antipathy  as  to  authorise 
Lord  Wellesley  on  June  1  to  form  a  ministry  and  to  com- 
municate with  Lords  Grey  and  Grenville  with  regard  to  their 
forming  part  of  it.  They  were  to  recommend  four  or  five 
of  their  friends  for  the  Regent's  approval ;  the  Regent  him- 
self nominating  four,  including  Lord  Wellesley  as  Prime 
Minister.  This  unfortunately  they  could  not  stand  ;  they 
objected  to  the  principle  of  disunion  and  jealousy,  to  the 
"  supposed  balance  of  contending  interests  in  a  Cabinet 
so  measured  out  by  preliminary  stipulation,  when  the  times 
required  an  Administration  united  in  principle,  and  strong 
in  mutual  reliance  ;  possessing  also  the  confidence  of  the 
Crown  and  assured  of  its  support  in  those  healing  measures 
which  the  public  safety  required."     (ib.  i.  342.) 

But  what  chiefly  caused  the  overtures  to  the  two  Lords  to 
fail  a  second  time  was  the  difficulty  of  the  Royal  Household. 
The  Household  had  always  been  considered  the  fair  spoil  of 
the  party  in  power,  and  it  was  deemed  a  great  concession  to 
George  III.  that  he  should  have  been  suffered  by  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  Talents  to  keep  any  part  of  his  Household.  So 
at  the  interview  with  Lord  Moira  it  was  particularly  asked 
whether  the  Household  would  be  at  their  disposal.  Lord 
Moira  replied  that  no  reserve  had  been  placed  upon  the 
offer  of  service,  but  his  answer  pointed  to  the  protection  of 
the  Household.  A  decided  difference  of  opinion  on  the 
subject  brought  the  conversation  to  an  end  "  with  mutual 
regrets."     (ib.  i.  356,  June  6,  1812.) 

According  to  Lord  Holland,  Lord  Grey  went  about  making 
an  unguarded  exposure  of  the  Regent's  duplicity  in  all  com- 
panies, and  this  sank  deep  in  the  Royal  mind.  "  The  new 
Court  was  henceforward  to  the  full  intent  as  the  old  one  on 
excluding  the  Whigs  from  all  office,  favour,  or  power."  Nor 
were  such  offences  confined  to  Lord  Grey  ;  for  "  we  all 
incurred  the  guilt,  if  not  the  odium  of  charging  his  Royal 
Highness  with  ingratitude  and  perfidy.  We  all  encouraged 
7 


98  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

every  species  of  satire  against  him  and  his  mistress.  He 
retorted  in  language  to  the  full  as  unmeasured  and  in  asser- 
tions much  more  unfounded."  {Further  Whig  Memoirs, 
122.)  But  there  is  one  bright  spot  in  all  this,  for  Lord 
Holland  justly  cites  the  conduct  of  Lord  Grey  and  Lord 
Grenville,  of  Lord  Wellesley,  Canning,  and  Lord  Liverpool 
in  this  crisis  as  disposing  of  the  taunt  that  politics  are  nothing 
but  a  scramble  for  office.  All  of  them  sacrificed  the  prospect 
of  place  and  power  "  for  a  creditable  and  sometimes  an  over- 
strained and  fastidious  regard  to  character  and  consistency. 
Every  one  of  them  might  have  obtained  office  by  the  sacrifice 
either  of  connections  or  opinions."     (ib.  149.) 

The  failure  of  the  Whigs  to  come  into  power  was  in  the 
circumstances  of  the  time  disastrous  ;  for  it  brought  in  a  Tory 
Government  under  Lord  Liverpool  (June  7,  1812),  which 
was  destined  to  last  for  fifteen  years,  and  during  which  there 
could  be  no  chance  for  Catholic  Emancipation.  Lord  Liver- 
pool's Ministry  came  into  power  on  the  basis  of  a  neutral 
attitude  on  this  fundamental  question.  Some  were  for 
concession  ;  more  against  it  ;  the  only  common  bond  was 
hostility  to  Parliamentary  Reform.  No  wonder  that  Creevey 
wrote  on  June  8  on  Lord  Liverpool's  appointment :  "  This 
is  beyond  anything  .  .  .  was  there  ever  anything  equal  to 
this  ?  "  (i.  165.)  All  that  the  nation  was  fated  to  suffer 
for  the  remainder  of  the  Regency  and  through  the  reign  of 
George  IV.  was  thus  due  to  the  personal  antagonism  between 
the  Sovereign  and  certain  individual  Ministers,  who,  if 
in  office,  might  have  saved  the  nation  from  the  calamities  it 
incurred. 

Lord  Liverpool's  term  of  office  did  not  begin  auspiciously  ; 
for  in  that  same  month  of  June  there  was  a  message  from  the 
Regent  on  the  disturbed  state  of  the  country.  In  Lancashire 
and  in  parts  of  Cheshire  and  of  the  West  Riding  large  bodies 
of  men  attacked  the  houses  of  master  manufacturers  and 
destroyed  machinery,  and  a  huge  conspiracy  of  workmen 
bound  themselves  by  secret  oaths  to  give  no  evidence  on 
trials  to  bring  the  guilty  to  justice.  (Colchester,  ii.  394.) 
A  dismal  period  ensued.  In  March  1815,  so  violent  was  the 
opposition  to  the  Corn-Taxing  Bill  that  mobs  thronged  the 
approaches  to  Parliament  and  damaged  the  houses  of  sup- 


Regency  Troubles  99 

porters  of  the  measure.  The  battle  of  Waterloo  the  same  year 
relieved  the  period,  but  it  was  at  the  cost  of  the  long  friendship 
between  Lord  Grey  and  Lord  Grenville.  The  latter  was  all 
for  the  renewal  of  hostilities  with  France  on  Napoleon's 
return  from  Elba,  whilst  Lord  Grey  considered  non-inter- 
vention the  right  policy  for  the  country  ;  holding  that  a  war 
of  aggression  on  France  was  unjustifiable  and  that  we  ought 
not  to  interfere  with  her  right  to  choose  what  form  of  govern- 
ment she  preferred.  An  uninfluential  minority  thought  the 
same.  "  We  are  very  bloody  in  this  town  (London),"  wrote 
the  Hon.  H.  Bennet,  M.P.,  to  Creevey  in  July  1815,  after 
Waterloo ;  "  people  talk  of  making  great  examples,  as  if 
the  French  had  not  the  right  to  have,  independent  of  us, 
what  government  they  liked  best."  {Creevey,  i.  241.)  Hardly 
was  our  own  of  such  absolute  perfection  as  to  commend 
its  adoption  by  our  neighbours. 


CHAPTER    II 

The  Monarch  and  his  Ministers 

The  strong  mutual  antipathy  which  existed  between 
George  IV.  and  the  leading  statesmen  of  his  day  was  not 
the  least  of  the  difficulties  with  which  monarchy  had  then 
to  contend.  Whilst  ties  of  personal  friendship  between 
George  III.  and  Lord  North  or  Pitt  had  eased  the  course 
of  that  Sovereign,  George  IV.  enjoyed  no  advantage  of  that 
sort.  He  was  on  terms  of  almost  constant  dislike  to  Perceval, 
Lord  Grey,  Lord  Sidmouth,  Lord  Liverpool,  and  Canning. 
Lord  Castlereagh  alone  seems  to  have  been  on  a  better 
footing  with  him.  The  difference  of  character  between  the 
King  and  most  of  his  Ministers  precluded  anything  like 
mutual  regard,  and  the  state  of  things  was  thus  described 
by  Greville :  "  Ministers  did  not  conceal  their  contempt 
and  dislike  of  the  King,  and  it  was  one  of  the  phenomena 
of  the  time  that  the  King  should  have  Ministers  whom  he 
abuses  and  hates,  and  who  entertain  corresponding  senti- 
ments of  aversion  to  him.'*     (i.  44.) 

The  King  and  Lord  Liverpool  were  by  nature  antagonistic 
spirits.  Arbuthnot's  evidence  shows  that  the  Prime  Minister 
was  always  glad  to  get  Lord  Castlereagh,  if  possible,  to 
relieve  him  of  personal  discussions  with  the  Sovereign,  "  which 
were  ever  painful  and  distressing."  (To  Croker,  December  7, 
1848  ;  Croker's  Memoirs,  iii.  192.) 

A  rupture  nearly  occurred  on  the  King's  accession,  for 
the  new  King's  first  thought  was  to  get  a  divorce  from  Queen 
Caroline,  and  when  Lord  Liverpool's  Government  in  the 
first  instance  refused  him  any  help,  he  threatened  them 
with  dismissal ;  a  power  on  the  side  of  prerogative  which 
tells  heavily  against  popular  government.  On  this  occasion 
the  expressed  readiness  of  the  Ministry  to  retire  from  his 


The  Monarch  and  his  Ministers        101 

service  caused  the  monarch  to  relent.  (Colchester,  iii.  115, 
February  15,  1820.) 

Croker,  in  his  Diary  for  July  30,  1821,  records  how  the 
King  had  complained  to  him  of  Lord  Liverpool  as  "  captious, 
jealous,  and  impracticable,"  objecting  to  everything,  and  even 
when  he  gave  way,  which  he  did  nine  times  in  ten,  doing  it 
with  so  bad  a  grace  that  it  was  worse  than  an  absolute 
refusal.  From  which  Croker  inferred  that  Liverpool  could 
not  possibly  continue  as  Prime  Minister  (i.  198),  though  he 
did  so  continue  until  1827. 

Lord  Colchester  gives  the  same  account  of  their  relations. 
The  King  declared  that  Liverpool  had  more  irritability  and 
less  feeling  than  any  man  he  ever  knew.  (iii.  330.)  The 
position  possibly  explains  the  irritability.  Many  were  the 
mortifications  Liverpool  met  with  because  he  would  not 
comply  with  the  wishes  of  certain  courtiers  regarding  Church 
preferments,  (iii.  234.)  But  he  knew  how  to  hold  his  own  ; 
as  in  the  Sumner  incident.  The  future  Archbishop  was 
then  but  a  curate,  and  the  King,  at  Lady  Conyngham's 
request,  to  whose  son,  Lord  Mount  Charles,  Sumner  had 
been  tutor,  appointed  him  to  a  vacant  canonry  at  Windsor, 
writing  to  Lord  Liverpool  to  announce  the  fact.  Sumner 
hurried  off  to  Brighton  to  kiss  the  King's  hand,  but  Lord 
Liverpool  hurried  there  too,  and  declared  that,  unless  the 
distribution  of  such  patronage  were  left  to  him  without 
interference,  he  could  not  carry  on  the  Government,  and  that 
he  would  resign  if  Sumner  were  appointed.  The  King  yielded, 
but  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  evidence  is  that  he  never 
forgave  the  Minister  his  victory  ;  that  it  "  influenced  every 
action  of  his  life  from  that  moment."  (Greville,  i.  47,  May  2, 
1821.) 

These  uncomfortable  relations  between  the  King  and 
his  Prime  Minister  clearly  did  not  tend  to  a  strong  Govern- 
ment, and  Liverpool  continued  to  wish  to  add  Canning  to 
the  Cabinet.  But  Canning's  sympathy  with  Queen  Caroline 
and  with  the  claims  of  the  Catholics  made  him  more  hateful 
to  the  King  than  even  Liverpool  himself.  On  July  7,  1821, 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  told  Fremantle  of  the  great  resist- 
ance of  the  King  to  the  idea  of  Canning's  reintroduction  to 
the  Cabinet,  as  he  could  not  forgive  his  conduct  about  the 

LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


102  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Queen  ;  for  to  his  instigation  he  attributed  the  opposition 
in  the  Lords  to  the  Divorce  Bill.  Fremantle  describes  how 
he  found  the  Duke  "  full  of  anger,  vexation,  and  complaint 
of  the  difficulty  in  which  the  Cabinet  was  placed  "  by  the 
attitude  of  the  King,  who  kept  up  flirtations  with  the  Opposi- 
tion and  was  impatient  at  the  idea  of  any  reduction  of  the 
Army.  As  the  King  would  have  turned  them  out  if  he  dared, 
the  Cabinet  was  careful  not  to  exasperate  him.  "  You  cannot 
imagine  the  state  of  irritation  the  Duke  was  in  this  morning. 
The  Duke  said  :  '  You  have  no  idea  of  the  mischief  that  is 
done  to  me  by  persons  who  have  an  opportunity  of  seeing 
and  conversing  with  the  King.  Lord  Anglesea  saw  him 
yesterday,  and  this  has  interfered  already  in  our  proposed 
military  reductions.'  Nothing  could  exceed  the  Duke's 
indignation  and  abuse  of  Lady  Conyngham,"  who  had 
sought  her  present  situation  for  twenty  years,  and  whose 
whole  and  sole  object  had  been  patronage  ;  she  mingled 
in  everything  she  could,  and  it  was  owing  to  a  few  inter- 
ferences on  the  Government's  part  that  her  animosity 
to  the  Government  proceeded  and  this  consequent  diffi- 
culty with  the  King.  (Buckingham's  George  IV.,  i.  176, 
July  7,  1821.) 

A  remarkable  letter  from  the  Duke  of  Wellington  to 
Lord  Liverpool  of  October  26,  1821,  reveals  the  difficulty 
of  the  situation.  The  Duke,  personally  in  favour  of  Canning's 
inclusion  in  the  Cabinet,  urged  the  Prime  Minister  to  press 
it  on  the  reluctant  monarch,  but  not  to  the  point  of  resign- 
ing in  case  of  failure.  It  was  not  a  matter  for  the  Govern- 
ment to  break  with  the  King  over,  and  so  letting  in  the  Whigs. 
The  Duke  told  Lord  Liverpool  that  the  King  had  never 
forgiven  him  for  the  Sumner  incident,  and  that  the  King's 
real  objection  to  Canning  lay  in  the  fact  of  Liverpool's  wishing 
for  him.  What  they  had  to  choose  between  was  :  bearing 
with  the  "  many  inconveniences  and  evils  resulting  from  the 
King's  habits  and  character,  which  none  of  your  predecessors 
ever  bore,"  and  giving  way  to  the  Whigs  and  Radicals,  to  the 
country's  "  irretrievable  ruin."  (Supplementary  Despatches, 
i.  192-4.)  Nothing,  however,  came  of  the  matter,  nor  was 
it  till  the  following  year  that  Canning's  chance  came,  when 
Lord    Londonderry     (Castlereagh)    committed     suicide    on 


The  Monarch  and  his  Ministers        103 

August  11,  1822,  after  a  ten  years'  tenure  of  the  Foreign 
Office  and  the  leadership  of  the  Commons. 

But  "  the  King's  repugnance  of  Canning's  coming  into 
office  was  extreme,"  wrote  Greville,  "  and  it  required  all  the 
efforts  of  the  Ministers  to  surmount  it.  The  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton and  Peel  have  all  the  credit  of  having  persuaded  the  King 
to  consent,"  though  Greville  thought  that  Lord  Bathurst 
had  most  to  do  with  it.     (i.  55.) 

Lord  Colchester  says  that  it  was  Lord  Liverpool  who 
forced  Canning  on  the  King,  thus  sacrificing  the  principle 
of  a  purely  Protestant  Ministry,  (iii.  256,  September  5, 
1822.)  But  in  any  case  it  was  the  Duke  who  prevailed 
on  the  King,  for  so  the  King  himself  told  the  third 
Lord  Londonderry  at  their  interview  on  April  12,  1827. 
(Wellington,  ib.  iii.  632-5.)  The  Duke  was  ill  at  the  time, 
and  the  matter  had  to  be  settled  by  correspondence.  In 
reply  to  the  proposal  the  King  wrote  on  September  5  :  "If 
I  could  get  over  that  which  is  so  intimately  connected  with 
my  private  honour,  all  might  be  well,  but  how,  my  friend, 
is  that  to  be  effected  ?  "  Two  days  later  the  Duke  wrote 
back,  pressing  Canning's  claims  and  deprecating  the  resigna- 
tion of  Lord  Chancellor  Eldon  as  a  consequence.  What  did 
it  matter  if  Canning  did  differ  from  the  King's  other  servants 
about  the  criminal  law  or  the  Catholic  question  ?  And  as 
to  the  most  important  point — His  Majesty's  feelings — and 
the  point  of  honour,  the  honour  of  His  Majesty  consisted  in 
acts  of  mercy  and  grace,  and  it  was  most  safe  in  extending 
his  grace  and  favour  to  Mr.  Canning,  in  view  of  the  benefit 
to  His  Majesty's  service,  (ib.  i.  273-6.)  These  arguments 
convinced  the  King,  and  on  September  13  Canning  received 
the  seals  of  office,  thus  becoming  Foreign  Minister  and  the 
leader  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

These  simple  facts  must  have  been  the  foundation  for  the 
mythical  story  told  to  Sir  H.  Bulwer  Lytton  by  an  intimate 
friend  of  both  the  King  and  the  Duke,  and  repeated  by  him 
in  his  Historical  Characters  (ii.  334.)  As  the  Duke  was  ill 
at  Stratfieldsaye,  and  could  not  have  been  at  Windsor,  the 
story  has  no  merit  except  as  illustrating  the  idea  of  the  time 
concerning  the  King  and  the  Duke.  "  Good  God,  Arthur," 
said  the  King,  "  you  don't  mean  to  propose  that  fellow  to 


104  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

me  as  Secretary  of  Foreign  Affairs  !  It  is  impossible.  I 
said  on  my  honour  as  a  gentleman  he  should  never  be  one 
of  my  Ministers  again.  You  hear,  Arthur,  on  my  honour  as  a 
gentleman.  I  am  sure  you  will  agree  with  me.  I  can't  do 
what  I  said  on  my  honour  as  a  gentleman  I  would  not  do." 
"  Pardon  me,  sir,  I  don't  agree  with  you  at  all,"  said  the 
Duke.  "  Your  Majesty  is  not  a  gentleman."  The  King 
started.  "  Your  Majesty,  I  say,  is  not  a  gentleman,  but 
the  Sovereign  of  England,  with  duties  to  your  people  far 
above  any  to  yourself  ;  and  these  duties  render  it  imperative 
that  you  should  at  this  time  employ  the  abilities  of  Mr. 
Canning."  "  Well,"  drawing  a  long  breath,  "  if  I  must,  I 
must,"  was  finally  the  King's  reply. 

So  ended  in  Canning's  favour  what  the  Lord  Chancellor 
described  as  a  week  of  great  distress  to  the  King,  and,  as 
Fremantle  wrote,  a  most  bitter  pill  it  was  for  him  to  swallow. 
(Buckingham's  George  IV.,  i.  374.) 

But  for  some  time  relations  between  the  King  and  Canning 
were  not  of  the  best.  The  Duke  declared  that  during  the 
years  they  were  colleagues  he  had  had  to  reconcile  the  King 
to  his  Foreign  Minister  forty  times.  (Colchester,  iii.  502.) 
And  on  May  8,  1824,  the  King  complained  to  Lord  Liverpool 
of  Canning's  having  attended  a  dinner  given  by  Waithman, 
the  Radical  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  as  a  personal  affront  to 
himself,  and  it  ended  in  Canning's  having  to  apologise.  In 
the  political  field,  Canning's  recognition  of  the  Spanish- 
American  republics  met  with  the  strongest  opposition  from 
the  King.  At  one  time  the  King  became  so  offended  at 
Canning's  influence,  especially  over  Lord  Liverpool,  that  he 
got  Arbuthnot  to  tell  the  latter  that  he  could  not  endure 
to  see  Canning  make  a  puppet  of  him,  and  that  he  would 
rather  see  Canning  Prime  Minister  at  once  than  that  he 
should  have  all  the  power  without  the  name  of  governing 
him ;  that  unless  Lord  Liverpool  could  shake  him  off,  he 
would  not  let  him  remain  at  the  head  of  the  Government ; 
that  he  must  find  some  means  of  getting  rid  of  Canning. 
When  Arbuthnot  wrote  in  this  sense  to  Lord  Liverpool,  the 
latter  answered  in  terms  of  natural  indignation,  that  the 
King  had  better  take  care  what  he  was  about  or  he 
would  run  the  risk  of  making  the  end  of  his  reign  as  dis- 


The  Monarch  and  his  Ministers        105 

astrous  as  the  beginning  had  been  prosperous.     (Grcville,  ii. 
175.) 

On  such  terms  the  unpopular  Liverpool  Ministry  struggled 
on  till  February  17,  1827,  when  a  sudden  attack  of  paralysis 
compelled  the  Premier's  retirement.  The  Duke  of  Wellington 
told  Lord  Colchester  that  at  that  time  Lord  Liverpool  seemed 
never  more  firmly  fixed  in  his  position,  though  never  more 
"  despised  and  detested"  by  the  King.     (Colchester,  iii.  502.) 

Then  followed  several  more  weeks  of  doubt  and  intrigue, 
during  which  the  King  found  it  difficult  to  steer  between  the 
rival  claims  to  the  vacant  post.  At  separate  interviews  with 
the  Duke  of  Wellington,  with  Peel,  and  with  Canning,  he 
appears  to  have  told  each  to  try  to  agree  with  the  others, 
and  he  would  appoint  whichever  of  them  they  decided  upon. 
The  Duke  declined  to  advise  him  as  to  the  choice  ;  that 
must  rest  with  him.  "  It  was  the  only  personal  act  the 
King  of  England  had  to  perform."  To  leave  it  to  them 
to  elect  among  themselves  was  "  surrendering  the  Royal 
prerogative."  (ib.  iii.  501.)  The  Ultra  Tories  moved 
heaven  and  earth  to  prevent  Canning's  being  appointed. 
The  Duke  of  Newcastle  had  a  special  interview  with  the 
King,  at  which  he  conversed  with  him  in  what  the  King 
described  to  Lord  Londonderry  as  "  a  very  unbecoming 
manner."  He  threatened  His  Majesty  with  the  with- 
drawal of  his  support  and  of  that  of  other  noble  peers, 
leaving  the  King  to  think  that  there  was  a  wish  to  force 
Wellington  upon  him. 

For  some  time  the  King  could  come  to  no  conclusion, 
though  expressing  in  no  measured  terms  his  detestation  of 
Liberalism,  and  especially  of  Catholic  Emancipation.  He 
behaved  in  such  a  way  that  all  his  Ministers  were  "  disgusted 
with  his  doubting,  wavering,  uncertain  conduct,  so  weak 
in  action,  so  intemperate  in  language."  (Greville,  i.  95.) 
But  allowance  must  be  made  for  the  situation.  On  March  28 
Canning  told  the  King  plainly  that  he  would  not  co-operate 
with  an  anti-Catholic  peer  as  head  of  the  Government ; 
that  "  the  substantive  power  of  Prime  Minister  he  must 
have,  and,  what  was  more,  must  be  known  to  have,"  or 
nothing.  (Stapleton's  Canning,  iii.  315.)  On  the  other 
hand,  Peel,  who  was  fated  two  years  later  to  carry  Catholic 


106  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Relief,  told  the  King  he  could  not  continue  in  any  Govern- 
ment of  which  the  head  supported  that  measure.  The 
King  in  reply  suggested  that  he  should  continue  under  a 
secret  pledge  and  promise  from  himself  that  it  should  not  be 
carried,  and  on  Peel's  refusal  dismissed  him  with  resent- 
ment as  doubting  the  Royal  word.     (Greville,  i.  115.) 

On  April  10  Canning  took  a  still  bolder  line  with 
the  King,  telling  him  that  further  delay  was  impossible  ; 
that  he  must  make  up  his  mind.  The  story  which 
Canning  told  Lord  Melbourne  was  that,  when  the  King 
asked  him  how  he  could  get  sufficient  support  to  carry 
on  the  Government,  Canning,  showing  him  a  letter  from 
Brougham  offering  his  support,  said :  "  Sir,  Your  father 
broke  the  domination  of  the  Whigs ;  I  hope  Your  Majesty 
will  not  endure  that  of  the  Tories."  "  No,  I'll  be  damned 
if  I  do,"  said  the  King,  and  thereupon  made  him  Minister. 
(ib.  iii.  141.)  Another  story  was  that  Canning  "drove  the 
King  into  a  corner,  with  his  watch  in  his  hand.  '  Your 
Majesty  must  decide  in  half  an  hour  ;  for,  if  I  am  to  be  Prime 
Minister,  my  writ  must  be  moved  for  within  that  time.' 
The  King  then  gave  him  his  hand  to  kiss."  (Colchester's 
Diary,  iii.  501.) 

Such  was  the  state  of  chaos  that  followed  Canning's 
appointment  that  on  April  12  six  members  of  the  Liverpool 
Government,  including  Peel,  Lord  Eldon,  and  the  Duke 
of  Wellington,  resigned  rather  than  continue  under  Canning, 
nine  members  of  the  Government  outside  the  Cabinet  follow- 
ing their  example.  (Canning  Correspondence,  ii.  295.)  Of  the 
former  Lord  Eldon  had  only  stayed  in  the  Government,  as 
the  King  told  Lord  Londonderry,  after  Canning's  appoint- 
ment as  Foreign  Secretary  in  1822  "  against  the  grain  at  my 
positive  entreaty."  "  The  real  reason,"  says  Greville,  "  why 
so  many  of  Canning's  colleagues  refused  to  serve  under  him 
in  1827  was  that  they  had  a  bad  opinion  of  him  and  would 
not  trust  him.  They  knew  of  his  intriguing,  underhand 
practices,"  and,  though  they  would  have  served  with  him, 
they  would  not  serve  under  him.     (v.  407.) 

Of  those  who  resigned  the  most  conspicuous  was  the 
Duke  of  Wellington,  who  resigned  his  place  in  the  Cabinet 
and  his  offices  of  Commander-in-Chief  and  Master  General 


The  Monarch  and  his  Ministers        107 

of  the  Ordnance.  The  letters  of  Canning  on  his  appoint- 
ment gave  him  great  offence,  especially  one  which  had 
been  shown  to  the  King  and  therefore  amounted  to  a  com- 
munication from  him,  and  the  Duke  could  not  continue 
in  command  "  unless  he  was  respected  and  treated  with  that 
fair  confidence  by  His  Majesty  and  his  Minister  which  he 
thought  he  deserved  ;  and  nobody  could  consider  that  he 
was  treated  with  confidence,  respect,  or  even  civility  by  Mr. 
Canning  in  his  last  letter."  Shelley,  in  a  letter  to  Lord 
Colchester,  spoke  of  the  letter  of  offence  as  "  so  insolent  and 
sarcastic  "  that  the  Duke  could  not  but  resign,  as  "  the 
insult  was  given  in  the  King's  name  "  ;  and  the  Duke  bade 
Shelley  give  this  story  all  the  circulation  he  could.  (Colchester, 
iii.  483-5.) 

The  King  committed  the  indiscretion  of  informing  the 
Duke  of  Canning's  having  said  to  him,  during  Lord  Liverpool's 
illness,  that  if  the  Tories  would  not  consent  to  his  being  Prime 
Minister,  he  was  sure  of  the  Whigs  ;  and  this  had  greatly 
offended  the  Duke.  (Greville,  ii.  172.)  The  Duke,  in  short, 
thought  that  the  whole  thing  was  a  scheme  to  "  force  "  him 
out  of  the  Government ;  and  it  would  seem  as  if  he  was  almost 
as  much  hurt  by  the  King's  conduct  as  by  Canning's.  The 
quarrel  with  Canning,  for  quarrel  it  was,  is  all  the  more  to  be 
regretted  in  that  in  his  letter  to  Canning  of  May  6,  1827,  he 
was  in  the  happy  position  of  being  able  to  say  that  he  had 
never  in  his  life  had  a  quarrel  with  any  man.  (Stapleton's 
Canning,  iii.  384.)  A  study  of  the  whole  episode,  as  given 
in  Stapleton's  Canning  (iii.  352-84)  or  in  Wellington's  Supple- 
mentary Despatches  (iii.  627),  leaves  the  blame  fairly  divided 
between  the  combatants. 

The  King  was  indignant  at  the  Duke's  resignation.  Lord 
Londonderry  told  the  Duke  that  the  King  was  "  very  sore  at 
his  notion  of  desertion  by  those  who  forced  Mr.  Canning  on 
him  originally."  (April  13.)  And  Colonel  Trench  told  the 
Duke  how  the  King  in  his  long  interview  with  the  Archbishop 
expressed  himself  "  very  angrily  at  the  desertion  of  his  friends, 
and  most  so  of  Your  Grace."  (April  18.)  On  that  date  the 
King  was  reported  as  so  furious  at  all  the  refusals  and  resigna- 
tions that  he  swore  he  would  sooner  surrender  the  Catholic 
question  than  depart  from  Canning.     (Londonderry  to  Duke 


108  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

of  Wellington,  April  18.)  The  King  was  so  exceedingly  angry 
with  the  seceders  that  he  gave  the  full  weight  of  his  support 
to  Canning.  (Bagot's  Canning,  ii.  390.)  But  that  did  not 
add  to  the  King's  popularity  ;  as  was  shown  at  the  Academy 
Dinner  on  May  5,  when  the  toast  of  the  Duke  was  received 
with  great  applause,  whilst  that  of  the  King,  "  our  magnificent 
patron,"  met  with  no  applause  at  all.  (Colchester's  Diary,  iii. 
494.)  The  King,  unfortunately,  never  inspired  confidence. 
Lord  Lyttleton,  in  a  letter  of  May  22,  could  see  no  danger  to 
Canning's  Ministry  except  from  "  a  certain  Personage,  whose 
malevolence  to  certain  of  his  servants  and  whose  tete  exaltee 
upon  a  particular  question  keep  us  in  perpetual  hot  water, 
and  must  make  his  service  extremely  painful  as  well  as  pre- 
carious."    (Bagot's  Canning,  ii.  403.) 

But  the  King  was  not  alone  in  his  vexation  with  the  Duke. 
"  Friend  or  foe,"  wrote  Sir  C.  Bagot  to  Lord  Binning  on  April 
26,  1827,  "  all  blame,  and  so  loudly  the  Duke's  petulant 
resignation  of  the  Army  that,  when  he  has  had  his  sulk  out 
he  must,  I  think,  see  the  immense  mistake  that  he  has  made 
and  return  to  his  duty."     (ib.  ii.  396.) 

The  five  years  that  had  elapsed  since  the  Duke  had  pressed 
Canning  into  the  Cabinet  had  not  improved  their  relations. 
They  differed  on  Continental  politics  and  the  Catholic  ques- 
tion, and  rivalry  had  sprung  up  between  them.  The  Duke 
complained  to  Lord  Colchester  of  Canning's  "  foolish,  insult- 
ing and  indecent  behaviour  towards  himself  "  ;  was  sure  that 
Canning  would  gladly  give  half  his  tenure  of  office  to  have 
him  back,  and  would  like  to  have  him  as  his  Commander-in- 
Chief  but  for  his  fear  of  the  consequences  of  the  Duke's  seeing 
the  King  three  times  a  week.  (iii.  502.)  But  when  on  May 
21  the  King  wrote  to  the  Duke,  renewing  the  offer  of  the 
command  of  the  Army,  with  an  accompanying  friendly  note 
by  Canning,  the  Duke  refused  the  next  day,  and  after  what 
Canning  described  to  the  King  as  this  "  unaccountable 
refusal  "  there  was  no  more  effort  at  reconciliation.  Nor 
was  it  till  after  Canning's  death  that  the  Duke  resumed  his 
forsaken  office  on  August  17,  1827. 

But  in  the  same  period  the  King's  relations  with  Canning 
had  improved,  partly  owing  to  the  tact  by  which  the  latter 
had  led  the  King  to  imagine  that  he  inspired  the  policy  which 


The  Monarch  and  his  Ministers        109 

he  really  followed.  The  King  admitted  to  Lord  Londonderry 
that  since  1822  Canning  had  been  considerate  to  him  and 
behaved  well  in  every  respect.  And  the  Duke,  in  his  letter 
of  resignation,  admitted  that  for  the  last  two  years  Canning 
had  given  the  King  entire  satisfaction,  though  he  had  himself 
more  than  once  had  to  reconcile  him  to  some  of  Canning's 
acts  and  enable  him  to  regain  the  Royal  confidence. 
(Supplementary  Despatches,  iii.  630,  April  12.) 

Consequently  the  new  Canning  Ministry,  half  Liberal  and 
half  Tory,  began  with  some  fair  chance  of  success.  But  that 
the  King  triumphed  over  all  parties  is  proved  by  the  Cabinet 
Minute  of  April  23,  1827,  which  left  the  Catholic  question  an 
open  one,  free  to  every  member  of  it  to  support  or  propose, 
but  solely  in  his  individual  capacity. 

For  the  Whigs  would  not  join  Canning  unless  the  question 
was  taken  up  by  the  Cabinet.  All  they  could  do  was  to  give 
him  "  a  very  handsome  and  flattering  support,"  while  so 
many  of  his  own  side  "  flew  in  his  face  with  slander,  vile 
calumny  and  vituperation."  (Lord  Binning  to  Sir  C.  Bagot 
in  Bagot's  Canning,  ii.  407,  July  12,  1827.) 

The  King  played  his  part  between  contending  factions 
much  as  his  father  had  done,  but  with  less  natural  cleverness. 
"  My  father,"  said  the  Duke  of  Clarence  to  Lord  Colchester, 
"  was  a  thorough  John  Bull,  a  very  clever  man ;  knew  other 
men  well,  and  could  play  them  off  against  each  other.  The 
present  is  a  different  sort  of  man."  (Colchester's  Diary,  iii. 
519.)  Peel,  writing  to  Lord  Colchester,  complains  of  the 
King  for  "  playing  off  one-half  of  the  Administration  against 
the  other  half  ;  receiving  recommendations  for  honours  and 
offices  from  each  party  in  the  Government ;  and  putting 
aside  both  that  neither  might  triumph."  (ib.  iii.  527, 
November  18,  1827.) 

When  Canning  died  on  August  8,  1827,  in  consequence, 
partly,  of  the  terrible  persecution  by  his  own  party,  the  King 
was  thought  to  have  behaved  "  like  a  thoroughbred  gentle- 
man." He  sent  for  Canning's  two  chief  friends,  Lord  Gode- 
rich  and  Sturges  Bourne,  pressing  on  the  latter,  as  Canning's 
oldest  friend,  the  choice  of  the  Colonial  Office  or  the  Chancel- 
lorship of  the  Exchequer.  He  made  Canning's  widow  a 
peeress.     But  Huskisson,  as  Canning's  representative,  plainly 


no  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

told  him  that  neither  himself  nor  any  other  friend  of  Canning 
would  continue  to  serve  him,  if  he  tried  to  strengthen  the 
Government  by  an  infusion  of  any  of  Canning's  enemies  ; 
and  with  this  view  the  King  had  the  good  sense  to  express  his 
sympathy.     (Bagot's  Canning,  ii.  422-6.) 

Lord  Goderich  then  entered  on  his  short  spell  of  power. 
The  country  was  again  disappointed  by  finding  itself  in  the 
hands  of  another  mixed  or  divided  Cabinet,  such  as  the  King 
and  his  father  before  him  loved  ;  seven  of  its  members  being 
friendly  to  Catholic  Relief,  and  six  opposed  to  it.  Lord 
Redesdale's  opinion  was  that  the  King  had  led  himself  into 
all  this  political  entanglement  "  by  being  himself  an  in- 
trigant." He  thought  the  King  fancied  he  had  acted  with 
great  dexterity  under  the  guidance  of  Lady  Conyngham  and 
Sir  W.  Knighton,  two  intrigants  who  were  looking  only  to 
themselves.     (Colchester's  Diary,  iii.  538,  539.) 

To  steal  a  march  over  his  Ministers  in  the  great  State- 
lever  of  the  disposal  of  patronage  was  a  constant  object  with 
George  IV.  And  for  this  the  weak  Government  of  Lord 
Goderich  afforded  him  ample  scope.  "  The  King,"  writes 
Greville,  "  is  grasping  at  power  and  patronage  and  wants 
to  take  advantage  of  the  weakness  of  the  Government 
and  their  apparent  dependence  on  him  to  exercise  all  the 
authority  which  ought  to  belong  to  his  Ministers." 
(i.  112.) 

The  nomination  of  Herries  as  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer, and  of  the  Duke  of  Portland  as  President  of  the 
Council,  without  consulting  his  Ministers,  provoked  the 
Whigs  to  the  strongest  indignation.  It  was,  too,  without 
any  consultation  with  Ministers  that  the  King  and  the  Duke 
of  Clarence  made  promotions  and  dispensed  honours  after 
the  battle  of  Navarino  ;  and  in  the  same  way  Sumner  was 
made  Bishop  of  Winchester.  "  The  peremptory  manner  in 
which  the  King  claimed  the  disposal  of  every  sort  of  patron- 
age," his  "  assumption  of  all  power  in  disposing  "  of  it, 
seems  to  have  been  among  the  causes  of  the  resignation  of 
Lord  Goderich's  Government  after  the  short  life  of  only 
four  months  in  January  1828.     (Greville,  i.  117.) 

On  January  9,  1828,  the  Duke  of  Wellington  was  called  to 
the  helm,  and  with  Peel  for  Home  Secretary  his  Cabinet  was 


The  Monarch  and  his  Ministers        1 1 1 

complete  by  the  end  of  that  month.     The  Tories  were  again 
in  power. 

From  the  foregoing  story  it  may  be  judged  how  tangled 
a  web  was  the  government  of  this  country  under  George  IV. 
The  jealousies  and  rivalries  of  parties  and  individuals  must 
bear  their  fair  share  of  the  responsibility  for  the  confusion, 
and  these  would  have  been  just  the  same  under  a  Republic 
as  under  a  Monarchy.  But  a  monarch,  unlike  a  president, 
offers  an  opposition  which  may  be  for  life,  not  for  a  period, 
to  politicians  he  dislikes,  and  his  obstinacy  against  any  par- 
ticular measure,  like  that  of  George  IV.  and  his  father  to 
Catholic  Emancipation,  may  prove,  as  in  their  case,  an  end- 
less source  of  friction  and  discord.  George  IV.  once  ex- 
pressed to  the  French  Minister  his  unalterable  conviction 
that  "  for  the  welfare  of  mankind  we  ought  not  to  wish  any 
other  people  to  have  our  institutions.  What  does  pretty 
well  for  us  would  be  worthless  elsewhere."  Even  he  only 
put  it  at  "  pretty  well."  Nor  must  the  verdict  of  the  Duke 
of  Wellington  be  forgotten  :  "  Between  the  King  and  his 
brothers  the  Government  of  this  country  has  become  a 
most  heartrending  concern.  Nobody  can  ever  know  where 
he  stands  upon  any  subject." 


CHAPTER    III 

The  Nadir  of  Monarchy 

If  history  teaches  one  lesson  more  conclusively  than  another, 
it  is  that  monarchical  power  is  often  more  than  the  human 
brain  can  stand.  During  the  greater  part  of  the  reign  of 
George  III.  the  liability  to  insanity  in  the  monarch  added 
enormously  to  the  difficulties  of  our  statesmen  and  to  the 
dangers  of  the  State.  Even  before  the  worst  attack,  which 
lasted  through  the  winter  of  1788  to  the  following  February, 
the  King  had  shown  symptoms  of  mental  derangement  both 
at  the  time  of  the  riots  of  1780  and  at  the  close  of  Lord  North's 
Ministry  in  1782.  "  When  constrained  to  business,"  writes 
Lord  Holland,  "  he  was  clear  and  decisive  ;  but  he  often 
betrayed  the  narrowest  prejudices  on  things,  and  that  con- 
stitutional suspicion  of  mankind  which  is  so  frequent  a  con- 
comitant of  a  disordered  understanding."  {Further  Whig 
Memoirs,  58.)  One  of  his  worst  attacks  followed  Pitt's 
resignation  in  1801 ;  his  incapacity  necessitated  a  delay  of 
some  weeks  in  the  appointment  of  new  Ministers.  Lord 
Sidmouth  declared  that  his  chief  reason  for  resigning  the 
Premiership  in  1804  was  the  trouble  about  the  King's  health  ; 
and  consideration  for  the  King's  "  ease  of  mind  "  frustrated 
every  chance  of  that  emancipation  of  the  Catholics  which 
might  have  made  the  Union  with  Ireland  a  success  and 
averted  discord  from  a  whole  generation. 

The  cloud  settled  down  permanently  on  the  unfortunate 
King  in  1810,  and  exposed  the  country  for  a  decade  to  all 
the  disadvantages  of  a  Regency.  The  memory  of  the 
Regency  is  associated  so  much  with  the  scandal  of  the 
Regent's  unhappy  wife  that  even  the  military  glory  of 
Waterloo  did  but  little  to  redeem  the  period  from  the 
character  of  being  one  of  the  most  deplorable  in  our  annals. 
The  splendour  of  our  victories  abroad,  said  Lord  Holland* 


The  Nadir  of  Monarchy  1 1 3 

failed  as  signally  to  win  the  applause  of  the  vulgar  as  the 
approbation  of  the  wise  (ib.  158),  and  in  his  opinion  Queen 
Caroline  was  "  always  in  a  state  bordering  on  insanity,  and 
sometimes  actually  insane."     (ib.  178.) 

Nor  was  her  husband  free  from  suspicion  of  the  same 
misfortune. 

"  From  various  instances  of  eccentricities,"  writes 
Greville,  "  I  am  persuaded  that  the  King  is  subject  to  occa- 
sional impressions  which  produce  effects  like  insanity  ;  that, 
if  they  continue  to  increase,  he  will  end  by  being  decidedly 
mad."  (i.  75,  November  29,  1823.)  This  was  when  the 
Catholic  question  was  disturbing  men's  minds.  But  it  is 
difficult  to  reconcile  this  evidence  with  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton's opinion  that  the  King  did  not  care  a  farthing  about 
the  Catholic  question  (ib.  i.  103) ;  and  even  Greville  himself 
asserts  that  the  King  cared  more  about  horse-racing  than 
about  the  welfare  of  Ireland  or  the  peace  of  Europe,  (ib.  i. 
144.) 

Unfortunately  the  personal  popularity  of  the  old  King 
passed  to  none  of  his  sons.  Of  George  III.,  Sir  Samuel  Romilly 
doubted  "  whether  the  history  of  mankind  could  furnish  an 
example  of  a  good  man  seated  on  a  throne  who  in  the  course 
of  a  long  reign  had  done  less  for  the  happiness  of  any  portion 
of  his  subjects."  (Memoirs,  ii.  302.)  And  he  thought  his 
popularity  would  seem  very  unaccountable  to  posterity. 
Till  the  end  of  the  American  War  (1782)  George  had  been  one 
of  the  most  unpopular  Kings  we  ever  had  ;  but  since  that 
time  he  had  been  one  of  the  most  popular,  though  in  nothing 
had  his  character  changed.  The  change  was  due  primarily 
to  his  taking  the  popular  side  in  opposition  to  the  Coalition 
between  Fox  and  Lord  North  ;  and  sympathy  for  him  was 
enhanced  by  the  madwoman's  attempt  on  his  life  in  1786  ; 
by  the  dissolute  life  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  ;  by  his  malady 
in  1788  ;  and  still  more  by  the  horrors  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion,    (ib.  ii.  305.) 

But  some  deductions  must  be  made  from  this  estimate, 
if  certain  incidents  are  any  index  to  public  opinion.  When 
Parliament  met,  for  instance,  on  October  29, 1797,  George  III. 
"  was  scandalously  insulted  on  his  way  to  the  House  of 
Lords,  and  as  he  arrived  within  a  few  yards  of  Henry  VII. 's 
8 


1 1 4  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Chapel,  one  of  his  coach  glasses  was  pierced  by  a  stone  or 
bullet."  An  immense  mob  shouted,  "  No  war,"  "  Down 
with  tyrants,"  "  No  King,"  and  stones  and  dirt  were  thrown 
in  great  quantities  at  the  state  carriage  both  in  going  and 
returning.  Lord  Westmoreland  and  Lord  Onslow  were  with 
the  King,  and  were  much  agitated.  But  the  King  lost 
neither  his  courage  nor  his  humour  ;  for,  presenting  Lord 
Onslow  with  a  stone  that  had  lodged  in  his  sleeve,  he  bade 
him  keep  it  as  a  memento  of  the  civilities  they  had  received. 
And  he  read  his  speech  "  with  extraordinary  firmness  and 
spirit."  (Colchester's  Diary,  i.  2.)  On  June  15,  1800,  the 
King  was  shot  at  in  the  morning  at  a  review  of  the  Gren- 
adiers, and  the  same  evening  he  was  fired  at  as  he  entered 
Drury  Lane  Theatre  by  a  man  in  the  pit  (ib.  i.  204) :  a  record, 
surely,  for  one  day. 

But  little  of  the  popularity  of  the  old  King  fell  to  the 
lot  of  the  Regent.  His  dissolute  character ;  his  betrayal  of 
Liberalism  ;  his  relations  with  his  wife  ;  all  brought  the 
monarchy  into  a  state  of  disrepute  of  which  in  these  happier 
times  it  is  difficult  to  form  a  conception.  In  December  1815 
we  are  told  that  "  the  Regent  is  more  unpopular  than  ever  ; 
and  on  a  late  occasion,  when  His  Royal  Highness  went  to 
church  (to  receive  the  Sacrament)  he  was  hissed  and  groaned 
at  both  going  and  coming.  He  was  afraid  of  going  in  state 
through  the  streets  as  he  should  have  done,  but  went  in  his 
private  carriage  through  the  park.  But  the  mob  found  him 
out,  and  clung  to  the  carriage  wheels,  hissing  .  .  .  and  the 
church — the  Chapel  Royal — was  surrounded  by  soldiers." 
(Bury's  Court  under  George  IV.,  ii.  67.)  The  Regent  shared 
with  Lord  Yarmouth,  of  whose  debauched  life  as  Lord  Hert- 
ford Greville  has  left  so  striking  a  picture  (v.  92-4),  the 
aversion  of  the  mob,  and  could  appear  nowhere  without  being 
hissed,  (ib.  ii.  77.)  Again,  "  The  Prince  Regent  left  town 
last  night  (January  2,  1816).  He  has  been  so  much  hissed 
by  the  mob,  he  is  quite  disgusted ;  and  the  old  Queen  also 
in  going  to  her  last  Drawing-room  was  hissed  and  reviled, 
and  the  people  asked  her  what  she  had  done  with  the  Princess 
Charlotte.  They  stopped  her  chair,  and  she  put  down  the 
glass,  and  said,  '  I  am  seventy-two  years  of  age  ;  I  have 
been  fifty-two  years   Queen  of  England,  and  I  never  was 


The  Nadir  of  Monarchy  1 1 5 

hissed  by  a  mob  before.'  So  they  let  her  pass.  And  when 
the  Regent  sent  several  aides-de-camp  to  see  her  safely  to 
Buckingham  Palace,  she  said  to  them,  '  You  left  Carlton 
House  at  his  orders  ;  return  there  at  mine,  or  I  will  leave  my 
chair  and  go  home  on  foot.'  "     (ib.  ii.  100.)  ! 

On  January  28,  1817,  the  Regent  on  his  way  back  from 
opening  Parliament  in  the  House  of  Lords  was  attacked  in 
his  carriage  between  Carlton  House  and  St.  James's. 
(Colchester,  iii.  600.)  But  when  on  February  6,  1821,  he 
visited  Drury  Lane,  in  company  with  his  brothers  of  York 
and  Clarence,  he  was  received,  much  to  his  satisfaction, 
"  with  immense  acclamations,  the  whole  pit  standing  up, 
hurrahing,  and  waving  their  hats."     (Greville,  i.  44.) 

Public  affairs  were  never  at  a  lower  ebb  than  when  on 
the  death  of  George  III.  on  January  29,  1820,  the  Regent 
stepped  into  his  father's  shoes  as  George  IV.  Discontent 
was  universal  in  the  lower  classes,  and  so  far  sympathised 
with  by  the  higher,  that  Lord  Fitzwilliam  was  removed  from 
the  Lord-Lieutenancy  of  Yorkshire  for  siding  with  the  rioters 
at  Manchester.  (Marquis  of  Wellesley  to  the  Marquis  of  Buck- 
ingham, October  22,  1819,  Buckingham's  Regency,  ii.  356.) 

In  November  1819  so  imminent  had  seemed  an  insur- 
rection in  the  North  that  troops  with  cannon  had  been  sent 
to  Cheshire,  Yorkshire,  and  Lancashire,  and  the  same 
symptoms  appeared  in  Cornwall. 

Lord  Redesdale  wrote  on  January  4,  1820,  that  there  was 
"  a  very  bad  spirit  abroad  "  ;  he  doubted  whether  it  would 
not  be  "  more  fortunate  for  the  country  if  half  Manchester 
had  been  burned,  and  Glasgow  had  escaped  with  a  little 
singeing."     (Colchester,  iii.  109.) 

In  April  1820  risings  seemed  imminent  about  Leeds  and 
Huddersfield,  and  in  Scotland  an  action  took  place  between 
a  small  party  of  Radicals  and  the  soldiers.  Nor,  considering 
that  in  those  days  Glasgow  weavers  only  earned  2s.  7d.  a 
week  for  working  from  14  to  16  hours  a  day  (Buckingham's 
Regency,  ii.  372),  does  the  discontent  seem  unintelligible. 

But  those  symptoms  were  nothing  compared  to  the  famous 
Cato  Street  Conspiracy  of  February  1820 ;  a  conspiracy 
actually  to  assassinate  the  entire  Cabinet  at  a  forthcoming 
dinner  at  Lord  Harrowby's  in  Grosvenor  Square  on  February 


1 1 6  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

23,  and  to  get  London  into  the  hands  of  an  armed  mob. 
Timely  information  defeated  the  plot,  and  the  Cabinet  dined 
at  Fife  House  instead  of  in  Grosvenor  Square.  In  the  capture 
of  Thistlewood's  gang,  one  constable  was  killed,  several  were 
wounded,  and  nine  conspirators  captured,  of  whom  five  came 
to  the  gallows  in  May.  (Croker,  i.  162,  163.)  But  the  fact 
that  Thistlewood  and  men  like  him  had  for  years  plotted  such 
things,  and  had  thought  it  a  possible  task  to  capture  the 
banks,  burn  public  buildings,  seize  the  Tower,  and  overturn 
the  Government,  seems  to  indicate  a  reliance  on  the  forces 
of  anarchy  which  is  only  explicable  on  the  belief  in  a  wide- 
spread disaffection  to  the  Government. 

In  June  1820  "  the  principal  Ministers  went  in  daily 
danger  of  their  lives.  Lord  Sidmouth  never  drove  out  with- 
out a  case  of  loaded  pistols  on  the  seat  of  the  carriage  ready 
for  instant  use."  (Buckingham's  George  IV.,  i.  44.)  If  a 
Minister  was  recognised  in  the  streets,  he  would  be  greeted 
with  groans  and  hisses,  and  sometimes  with  more  formidable 
missiles. 

So  universal  was  the  spirit  of  discontent  that  it  even 
found  expression  in  the  Army.  There  were  strong  symptoms 
of  mutiny  in  one  battalion  of  the  Third  Guards.  (Colchester, 
iii.  143.)  And  on  July  7,  Bankes  wrote  :  "  The  spirit  of 
discontent  and  disaffection  is  very  widely  prevalent,  and 
above  all  some  symptoms  of  the  same  feeling  have  been 
observed  in  the  military."     (ib.  iii.  165.) 

Sympathy  with  Queen  Caroline  in  the  impending  trial 
for  her  divorce  intensified  the  unpopularity  of  the  Govern- 
ment; for  as  Lord  Lyttleton  wrote — on  August  8,  1820 — 
"  not  only  the  mob,  but  people  of  all  ranks,  and  the  middle 
classes  almost  to  a  man,  and  I  believe  the  troops  too,  side 
with  the  Queen."  When  the  Bill  of  Pains  and  Penalties 
against  her  was  withdrawn,  "  the  town  was  literally  drunk 
with  joy  at  this  unparalleled  triumph  of  the  Queen " 
(Creevey,  i.  323,  October  9,  1820)  ;  and  "  a  delirium  of  joy" 
passed  all  over  the  country,  especially  in  the  large  towns. 
(Buckingham's  George  IV.,  i.  84.)  It  is  symptomatic  of  the 
anarchy  of  the  time  that  in  1821,  near  London,  stage  coaches 
were  "  stopped  and  robbed  by  large  numbers  of  bandits." 
(Colchester,  iii.  237.) 


The  Nadir  of  Monarchy  1 1 7 

No  wonder  that  on  the  Continent  we  were  thought  to  be 
on  the  eve  of  a  revolution.  Many  thought  the  same  in  the 
country  itself.  "  A  soldier  less  and  we  shall  have  revolution 
and  civil  war,"  wrote  Lord  Cassilis  in  December  1820.  And 
on  July  4,  1821,  Fremantle  wrote  of  the  "  danger  of  the 
revolution  which  is  fast  approaching,  and  which  daily 
threatens  us  more  and  more."  (Buckingham's  George  IV.,  ii. 
74.) 

The  failure  of  the  unhappy  Queen  Caroline  to  obtain 
admission  to  Westminster  Abbey  at  the  Coronation  on 
July  19, 1821,  so  told  on  her  health  that  she  died  on  August  7, 
1821,  and  on  August  12  the  King  and  his  party  landed  in 
Ireland,  according  to  Fremantle,  "  in  the  last  stage  of 
intoxication."     (ib.  i.  194.) 

Creevey  also  asserts  that  when  the  King  landed  in  Ireland 
he  was  "  dead  drunk  "  ;  "  they  drank  all  the  wine  on  board 
the  steamboat,  and  then  applied  to  the  whiskey  punch  till 
they  could  hardly  stand."  (ii.  30.)  Although  therefore  he  had 
a  magnificent  reception  in  Ireland,  one  can  understand  the 
"  great  unpopularity  "  which  Fremantle  notices  as  attaching 
to  him  on  September  16,  1821.  (Buckingham's  George  IV.,  i. 
199.)  Nevertheless  he  grew  somewhat  in  popular  favour  after 
the  Queen's  death,  though  this  he  tended  to  lose  again  in  1823, 
when  he  took  to  removing  himself  "  as  much  as  possible  from 
the  popular  gaze,"  and  shut  the  public  out  from  the  terrace 
and  public  walks  at  Windsor,     (ib.  i.  481,  483.) 

George  IV.  owed  much  to  Sir  William  Knighton,  first  his 
physician,  and  then  the  Keeper  of  his  Privy  Purse.  There 
was  strong  mutual  attachment  between  them,  as  is  shown  by 
their  letters.  The  King  writes  to  Knighton  on  August  10, 
1821,  "  It  is  utterly  impossible  for  me  to  tell  you  how  un- 
comfortable and  miserable  I  always  feel  when  I  have  not  you 
immediately  at  my  elbow  "  (Knighton's  Memoirs,  i.  147), 
and  the  King's  assurances  of  his  affection  are  frequent. 
On  the  other  hand,  Knighton,  writing  to  his  wife,  speaks  of 
"the  dearest  King,"  "the  beloved  King."  (ib.  i.  177,  178, 
October  1821.)  And  this  relationship  seems  to  have  continued 
to  the  end.  On  December  27, 1827,  Knighton  made  the  King 
laugh  heartily  at  the  anxiety  shown  by  his  wife  at  a  supposed 
quarrel  between  them  ;    it  was  a  newspaper  trick.      "  His 


u8  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Majesty  and  I  were  never  on  more  happy  terms  of  feeling." 
(ib.  i.  377.)  And  when  on  June  26,  1830,  Knighton  had  to 
announce  to  his  wife  the  King's  death,  he  lamented  him  as 
"  one  of  the  cleverest  and  most  accomplished  men  in  Europe 
— full  of  benevolence."     (ib.  ii.  144.) 

It  is  difficult  to  reconcile  this  with  Greville's  account : 
that,  according  to  Lord  Mount  Charles,  the  King  abhorred 
Knighton  with  a  detestation  that  could  hardly  be  described  ; 
that  he  would  say  the  most  mortifying  things  of  him  in  the 
presence  of  others,  and  one  day,  when  the  door  was  open,  said, 
so  that  the  pages  could  hear,  "  I  wish  to  God  somebody 
would  assassinate  Knighton."  (i.  154,  January  12,  1829.) 
And  Lord  Mount  Charles  had  good  opportunities  of  knowing. 

Greville  expressed  himself  strongly  about  his  King : 
"  A  more  contemptible,  cowardly,  selfish,  unfeeling  dog, 
does  not  exist  than  this  King,  on  whom  such  flattery  is 
constantly  lavished."  Thinking  most  kings  to  be  of  inferior 
character,  he  believed  George  IV.  to  be  one  of  the  worst  of 
the  kind.  "  There  never  was  such  a  man,  or  behaviour  so 
atrocious  as  his — a  mixture  of  narrow-mindedness,  selfish- 
ness, truckling,  blustering,  and  duplicity,  with  no  object 
but  self,  his  own  ease,  and  the  gratification  of  his  own  fancies 
and  prejudices,  without  regard  to  the  advice  and  opinion  of 
the  wisest  and  best-informed  men,  or  to  the  interests  and 
tranquillity  of  the  country."  (Memoirs,  i.  184,  March  2, 
1829.)  "  With  vices  and  weaknesses  of  the  lowest  and 
most  contemptible  order  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  dis- 
position more  abundantly  furnished." 

These  are  too  well  known  to  need  recapitulation.  Creevey's 
account  of  his  social  habits  at  the  Brighton  Pavilion  shows 
the  depths  which  were  reached.  Not  only  would  he  drink 
a  great  quantity  of  wine  at  dinner,  but  he  was  very  fond  of 
making  any  newcomer  drunk  by  drinking  wine  with  him  very 
frequently,  always  recommending  his  strongest  wines,  and 
finishing  up  with  some  remarkably  strong  old  brandy,  ap- 
propriately called  Diabolino.     (i.  50.) 

But  he  had  his  better  side.  To  his  brother,  the  Duke 
of  Clarence,  he  was  "  the  best  of  brothers,  masters,  and  men," 
endeared  to  him  by  an  uninterrupted  friendship  of  fifty-nine 
years.     And  Sir  Walter  Scott  spoke,   when  the  King  had 


The  Nadir  of  Monarchy  119 

passed  beyond  the  reach  of  flattery,  of  his  "  gentle  and 
generous  disposition,"  of  his  "  captivating  conversation," 
which  rendered  him  "  as  much  the  darling  of  private  society 
as  his  heartfelt  interest  in  the  general  welfare  of  the  country 
and  the  constant  and  steady  course  of  wise  measures  by  which 
he  raised  his  reign  to  such  a  state  of  triumphal  prosperity 
made  him  justly  delighted  in  by  his  subjects."  (Knighton, 
ii.  151,  July  14,  1830.)  Nevertheless  the  balance  of  evidence 
goes  to  show  that,  despite  his  considerable  talents  and  great 
social  gifts,  George  IV.  showed  monarchy  at  its  worst.  That 
it  should  have  survived  such  an  ordeal  seems  almost  mira- 
culous, and  can  perhaps  best  be  accounted  for  by  the  fear 
which  French  experience  had  inspired  of  the  alternative 
political  system  to  monarchy.  But  the  outstanding  lesson 
of  his  reign  is  that  our  system  stakes  too  much  on  the  personal 
character  of  the  monarch  whom  the  pure  chance  of  heredity 
places  over  us. 


CHAPTER   IV 

The  Battle  of  the  Catholics 

The  fiction  that  the  Crown  is  of  no  party  has  somehow 
survived  the  direct  proof  to  the  contrary  afforded  by  every 
reign  in  greater  or  less  degree  since  1760.  In  the  case  of 
George  IV.  it  was  not  only  the  ultimate  Toryism  of  the 
monarch,  but  the  constant  Toryism  of  his  brothers  that  loaded 
the  dice  against  any  Liberal  policy.  Catholic  Relief  was  the 
burning  question  of  the  reign  of  George  IV.,  and  by  this  the 
action  of  the  monarchy  at  that  time  must  be  judged.  Sir 
William  Fremantle,  on  July  11,  1824,  mentions  not  only  the 
King  as  being  violently  anti-Catholic,  but  the  Duke  of  York 
as  being  "  outrageous  upon  it,"  and  as  taking  "  every  oppor- 
tunity of  expressing  his  resentment  and  rage."  (Bucking- 
ham's George  IV.,  ii.  103.) 

When  in  June  1823  Lord  Holland  brought  in  a  Bill  to 
enable  Scroop,  though  a  Catholic,  to  officiate  as  Earl  Marshal, 
a  Bill  which  passed  its  second  reading,  the  Duke  of  York 
was  "  perfectly  furious,"  and  wrote  to  every  peer  he  knew  to 
come  and  protect  the  Crown  against  the  insidious  Scroop. 
(Creevey,  ii.  78.) 

Sir  Francis  Burdett's  Relief  Bill  of  1825  was  wrecked  by  the 
Duke  of  York,  who,  after  its  passing  the  House  of  Commons  on 
second  reading  on  April  21,  made  a  violent  speech  against  it 
in  the  Lords  on  the  24th,  to  the  great  indignation  of  Lord 
Liverpool,  then  Prime  Minister,  and  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington. 
This  speech  was  placarded  all  over  the  walls  of  London,  and 
in  one  place  with  the  addition  :  "  Damn  the  King  !  The  Duke 
of  York  for  ever  !  "     (Buckingham's  George  IV.,  ii.  238,  241.) 

It  was  printed  in  letters  of  gold  and  circulated  throughout 
the  Kingdom.     (Liverpool's  Memoirs,  iii.  329.) 

Besides  this,  the  Duke  of  York  told  Lord  Sidmouth  at  a  levee 
that  the  King  had  assured  him  that  he  would  never  consent 


The  Battle  of  the  Catholics  1 2 1 

to  the  passing  of  such  a  Bill  (Colchester,  iii.  380) ;  a  declara- 
tion whose  judicious  circulation,  coupled  with  the  speech  in 
letters  of  gold,  ensured  the  defeat  of  the  measure  in  the 
Lords  by  forty-eight  on  May  16,  though  it  had  passed  the 
Commons  by  248  to  227.  This  of  course  filled  the  Catholics 
with  despair  (Bagot's  Canning,  ii.  281.) 

The  Duke  of  York's  influence  in  the  country  increased 
with  advancing  years.  Notwithstanding  the  grave  scandal 
in  connection  with  Mrs.  Clarke  and  the  sale  of  Army  com- 
missions, which  was  the  sensation  of  the  year  1809,  and  led 
to  the  Duke's  temporary  loss  of  the  Commandership  of  the 
Army,  he  lived  to  become  far  more  popular  than  the  King 
ever  was.  After  the  Duke's  death,  early  in  1827,  Lord 
Lyttleton,  in  a  letter  to  Sir  Charles  Bagot  (January  14,  1827), 
spoke  of  his  extreme  popularity ;  doubted  whether  one 
person  out  of  every  six  would  not  be  ready  to  run  you  through 
if  you  did  not  acknowledge  his  possession  of  every  virtue 
under  heaven ;  and  could  only  account  for  "  the  extra- 
ordinary attachment  of  so  many  persons  of  all  parties  and 
ranks  to  him  "  by  the  "  many  peculiarly  fine  points  in  his 
character."  (ib.  ii.  360.)  Between  two  royal  brothers  so 
fixedly  opposed  to  concession  Catholic  Emancipation  never 
seemed  further  from  realisation  than  within  three  years  of 
its  actual  passing. 

On  November  19,  1824,  the  King  wrote  to  Peel  :  "  The 
sentiments  of  the  King  upon  Catholic  Emancipation  are 
those  of  his  revered  and  excellent  father  ;  from  these  senti- 
ments the  King  never  can  and  never  will  deviate."  (Peel's 
Memoirs,  i.  276.)  The  agitation  in  Ireland  and  the  doings 
of  the  Catholic  Association  hardened  him  in  these  views, 
and  it  was  to  little  purpose  that  even  the  pre-Reform  Parlia- 
ment showed  itself  more  liberal.  Each  of  the  Parliaments 
returned  by  the  General  Elections  of  1807,  1812,  1818,  1820, 
and  1826  had,  with  the  exception  of  that  of  1818,  decided  in 
favour  of  the  Catholic  claims,  and  that  of  1818  only  negatived 
them  by  a  majority  of  two  :  243  to  241.  (ib.  i.  288.)  And 
the  Commons  in  1825  sent  a  Bill  to  the  Lords  for  the  repeal 
of  Catholic  disabilities  by  a  majority  of  twenty-one. 

The  Parliament  of  1826  showed  the  same  liberal  dis- 
position towards  the  Catholics.     But  it  was  still  the  King 


122  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

who  blocked  the  way.  When  in  April  1827,  after  the  resig- 
nation of  Lord  Liverpool,  Canning  was  instructed  to  form 
a  Ministry,  the  King  made  it  a  condition  that  the  Catholic 
question  should  not  be  so  much  as  raised,  and  Canning 
declared  that  on  this  matter  George  IV.  was  even  more  bigoted 
than  his  father  had  been.  (Colchester's  Diary,  iii.  483,  484.) 
On  April  14,  1827,  the  King  gave  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury and  the  Bishop  of  London  an  audience  of  six  hours, 
in  which  he  himself  talked  for  five.  He  told  them  that 
when  the  Talents  Administration  was  formed  in  1806  he 
pledged  the  Whigs  his  support  solely  from  regard  to  Fox, 
but  on  the  express  condition  that  his  father  should  not  be 
disturbed  by  the  raising  of  the  Catholic  question,  as  his 
father  would  never  consent  to  it,  nor  would  he  himself, 
if  he  came  to  the  throne.  (ib.  iii.  486.)  Fox,  he  said, 
observed  the  condition,  but  when  after  his  death  Lord 
Grenville  in  1807  wished  to  admit  the  Catholics  to  Staff 
appointments,  the  early  intimation  that  he  himself  was  able 
to  give  the  King  led  to  the  dismissal  of  the  Ministry.  He 
told  Lord  Castlereagh  that  the  Coronation  oath  must  be 
altered  before,  not  after  he  was  crowned ;  otherwise  he 
would  rather  lay  his  head  on  the  block  than  consent  to  it. 

At  this  historic  interview,  when  the  Archbishop  asked 
whether  these  views  were  to  be  treated  as  confidential,  the 
King  bade  him  tell  it  to  all  the  bishops  and  all  the  world  ; 
that  he  was  more  immovably  fixed  on  it  than  his  father. 
A  few  days  later  (May  7)  he  wrote  to  reproach  the  Arch- 
bishop for  not  having  given  enough  publicity  to  his  senti- 
ments ;  forgetting  or  disregarding  the  resolution  passed 
by  the  Commons  on  December  17,  1783,  on  the  East  India 
Bill  that  it  was  a  "  high  crime  and  misdemeanour,  a  gross 
breach  of  privilege  and  subversion  of  the  Constitution  to 
report  any  opinion  or  pretended  opinion  of  the  King  respect- 
ing any  Bill  or  other  proceeding  pending  in  Parliament." 
On  May  21  the  Bishop  of  London  told  the  clergy  of  his 
diocese  of  the  King's  declaration  ;  whereat  Lord  Harrowby 
in  the  Lords  waxed  "  extremely  vehement  and  passionate," 
declaring  that  the  Crown  could  not  rest  safely  on  the  Royal 
brow  if  the  King  were  to  make  known  his  opinions  on  any 
measure  pending  or  about  to  depend  in  Parliament  until 


The  Battle  of  the  Catholics  1 23 

both  Houses  tendered  it  for  the  Royal  assent.  (ib. 
iii.  509.)  But  the  Protestant  party  cared  little  for 
the  Constitution,  if  only  they  could  dish  Canning.  Lord 
Howard  de  Walden,  writing  to  Bagot  on  April  10,  1827, 
declared  that  he  "  never  knew  anything  like  the  bitterness 
of  the  Ultras  against  Canning  "  ;  they  deputed  the  Duke 
of  Newcastle  to  let  the  King  know  the  feeling  of  the  nation, 
and  to  insist  on  his  making  support  of  the  Catholics  a  dis- 
qualification for  the  Premiership.  (Bagot's  Canning,  ii. 
382.)  So  settled  seemed  the  question  that  Tierney  wrote  of 
the  Catholic  question  as  belonging  as  much  to  the  category  of 
past  things  as  the  town  of  Troy.     (ib.  ii.  387,  April  16,  1827.) 

But  it  is  often  the  unlikely  that  happens  in  politics,  and 
within  a  short  time  of  the  formation  of  the  Wellington-Peel 
Ministry  in  January  1828,  Lord  John  Russell's  motion  for  the 
repeal  of  the  Test  and  Corporation  Acts — a  question  which 
had  slumbered  since  1790 — was  carried  against  the  Govern- 
ment by  237  to  193  on  February  26,  1828.  Peel  there- 
upon consulted  the  Archbishop  and  other  prelates,  and  by 
judiciously  substituting  a  declaration  for  an  oath  on  the 
admission  of  dissenters  to  offices  secured  its  passage  through 
the  Lords.  (Peel's  Memoirs,  i.  68.)  But  the  words  in  the 
declaration,  "  on  the  true  faith  of  a  Christian,  "  still  kept 
the  Jews  outside  the  pale  of  office. 

On  May  8.  1828,  a  resolution  for  a  conciliatory  settle- 
ment of  Catholic  emancipation  was  only  defeated  by  six 
votes  :  272  to  266.  But  what  set  a  spur  to  legislation  was 
the  election  of  O'Connell  for  County  Clare  at  the  end  of 
June,  followed  by  the  unfortunate  decision  of  the  Cabinet 
not  to  let  him,  as  a  Catholic,  take  his  seat.  The  state  of 
Ireland  became  so  alarming  that  on  August  31,  1828,  Lord 
Anglesey,  the  Lord-Lieutenant,  pressed  on  Peel  the  necessity 
of  legislating  with  decision  and  promptitude.  Otherwise 
he  could  not  guarantee  the  peace  of  Ireland  beyond  the 
meeting  of  Parliament.  It  was  "  only  by  a  lucky  accident 
that  collision  had  been  twice  prevented  between  the  Pro- 
testants and  the  Catholics."  (Ellenborough,  i.  229.)  Re- 
bellion seemed  imminent.  The  King,  who,  on  May  19,  was 
described  as  "  very  eager  on  the  subject  of  the  Catholics,"  was 
described  by  Lord  Aberdeen  on  October  24>  as  "  more  wrong- 


124  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

headed  than  ever."  On  November  24  "no  progress  had 
been  made  with  him."  On  December  24  he  was  "  more 
hostile  than  he  ever  was."    (Ellenborough,  i.  109,  244,  264,  293.) 

Both  the  Duke  of  Wellington  and  Peel  were  convinced 
that  the  time  had  come  for  concession.  When  the  Wellington 
Ministry  had  been  formed  in  January  1828  there  had  been 
an  understanding  that  the  Catholic  question  should  not  be 
a  Government  measure,  and  the  year  1829  began  without  the 
King's  having  consented  to  allow  the  Cabinet  to  take  up 
the  whole  question  of  Ireland,  including  the  Catholic  ques- 
tion. "  The  chief  difficulty  was  the  King,"  wrote  Peel. 
(Memoirs,  i.  274.)  Early  in  January  1829  the  Duke  inter- 
viewed the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  the  Bishop  of  London, 
and  the  Bishop  of  Durham,  in  the  forlorn  hope  that  they 
might  bring  their  influence  to  bear  on  the  King  in  favour 
of  the  Government  proposal  ;  but  their  refusal  was  prompt 
and  decided.  The  division  in  the  Cabinet  was  such  that 
only  by  the  Duke's  urgent  entreaty  was  Peel  restrained  from 
resigning.  Not  till  January  15,  1829,  did  the  King  release 
the  Government  from  the  condition  of  their  admission  to 
office,  requiring  only  that  he  should  know  and  be  consulted 
about  the  details  of  their  Bill  (Ellenborough,  i.  297-8),  but 
not  pledging  himself  to  assent  even  to  the  unanimous  decision 
of  the  Cabinet.     (Peel,  i.  297-8.) 

On  January  18,  1829,  Lord  Ellenborough  remarks :  "  It 
really  is  like  a  dream.  How  beyond  hope  it  is  that  this 
question  should  be  taken  up  by  Government  in  this  King's 
life."  (ib.  i.  305.)  But  the  dream  was  not  yet  quite  ripe 
for  reality  ;  for  the  King  gave  trouble  to  the  end.  Parlia- 
ment was  to  meet  on  February  6,  and  "  the  consent  of  the 
King  to  the  actual  proposal  of  the  measures  to  Parliament, 
with  the  sanction  of  the  Crown,  had  yet  to  be  signified." 
It  is  that  preliminary  veto  that  really  matters,  and  is 
always  forgotten.  The  prospect  of  success  was  not  hope- 
ful, for  "  the  King  was  hostile,  the  Church  was  hostile, 
a  majority  probably  of  the  people  of  Great  Britain  was 
hostile  to  concession."  (Peel's  Memoirs,  i.  308.)  The  King 
gave  a  reluctant  assent  to  the  speech  to  be  given  as  his  from 
the  throne  to  Parliament  on  the  subject. 

Peel  then  resigned  his  seat  for  Oxford  University  from 


The  Battle  of  the  Catholics  125 

a  scruple  of  conscience,  and  his  bad  defeat  at  a  fresh  election 
by  Sir  Robert  Inglis  revived  the  hopes  of  the  forces  of  resist- 
ance. But  before  vacating  his  seat,  he  had  time  to  carry 
through  Parliament  the  Bill  for  the  suppression  in  Ireland 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Association,  which  passed  its  third 
reading  on  February  17,  1829. 

But  there  was  another  difficulty.  Hardly  had  the  King 
been  brought  to  the  point  of  a  resigned  assent  than  over 
from  abroad,  despite  all  efforts  to  prevent  him,  came  the 
King's  brother,  His  Grace  of  Cumberland,  more  Tory  than 
the  King  himself.  And  he  well-nigh  succeeded.  For  on 
February  26,  1829,  Lord  Ellenborough  writes  that  the  Duke 
of  Wellington  reported  a  "  very  disagreeable  "  conversation 
with  the  King,  with  whom  the  Duke  of  Cumberland  had  had 
a  great  effect,  (i.  361.)  The  Duke  of  Wellington  also  wrote 
to  the  King  to  say  that  the  Government  could  not  continue 
unless  it  had  the  King's  support ;  and  to  Sir  William  Knighton 
to  say  that,  if  the  Duke  of  Cumberland  thought  that  he  could 
form  a  Government,  he  had  better  do  so  and  thus  end  the 
matter.  Then  came  an  interview  on  February  27  between 
the  King  and  the  Duke,  an  appalling  interview  of  over  five 
hours,  at  which  His  Majesty  ended  by  yielding  on  all  points, 
even  to  the  extent  of  desiring  that  the  Duke  of  Cumberland 
should  leave  the  country  ;  but  it  must  have  been  in  some 
ways  worse  than  Waterloo,  for  the  Duke  described  it  as 
"  very  painful  indeed.  The  King  was  in  a  very  agitated 
state,  and  even  spoke  of  abdicating.  The  Duke  said  it  was 
the  more  painful  in  consequence  of  the  very  peremptory 
language  he  was  obliged  to  hold  to  him.  However,  the  King 
was  very  kind,  and  kissed  him  when  he  left  him."  (ib.  i.  368.) 
No  wonder  that  the  Duke  is  described  as  having  been  at  a 
subsequent  Cabinet  meeting  "  much  exhausted."  And  no 
wonder  that  the  Duke  wrote  later  :  "  If  I  had  known  in 
January  1828  one  tittle  of  what  I  do  now,  and  of  what  I 
discovered  in  one  month  after  I  was  in  office,  I  should  never 
have  been  the  King's  Minister  and  should  have  avoided  loads 
of  misery.  However,  I  trust  that  Almighty  God  will  soon 
determine  that  I  have  been  sufficiently  punished  for  my 
sins,  and  will  relieve  me  from  the  unhappy  lot  which  has 
befallen  me."     (Fitzgerald,  George  IV.,  ii.  427.) 


126  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Catholic  Emancipation  would  never  have  passed  in  1829 
but  for  the  powerful  personal  influence  which  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  exercised  over  the  mind  of  the  King.  Says 
Greville  :  "  The  greatest  Ministers  had  been  obliged  to  bend 
to  the  King,  or  the  aristocracy,  or  the  Commons,  but  he 
commanded  them  all."  The  Duke  could  address  the  King 
in  a  style  which  no  other  Minister  durst  adopt ;  could  speak 
with  him  as  an  equal  ;  and  the  King  stood  completely  in 
awe  of  him.  But  it  was  a  difficult  task.  The  King's  brother 
of  Cumberland  worked  him  one  day  into  such  a  state  of  frenzy 
that  he  talked  of  nothing  but  Catholic  Emancipation  with 
such  alarming  violence  that  it  took  the  Duke  six  hours  to 
restore  him  to  calmness.  (Greville,  i.  184.)  It  was  touch  and 
go  that  the  Duke's  Ministry  was  not  dismissed.  But  Greville 
consoled  himself  with  the  reflection  that,  though  there  was 
nothing  too  false  or  base  for  the  King  to  do  if  he  dared,  he 
was  such  a  coward  and  stood  so  much  in  awe  of  the  Duke 
that  nothing  serious  was  to  be  apprehended,     (i.  183.) 

"  Nobody  knows,"  said  the  Duke,  "  the  difficulties  I  have 
had  with  my  royal  master,  and  nobody  knows  him  so  well  as 
I  do,  but  I  am  as  in  a  field  of  battle  and  I  must  fight  it  out 
in  my  own  way."     (ib.  i.  193.) 

Contemporary  evidence  goes  to  show  that  the  King  was 
nearly  driven  mad  by  the  Catholic  question.  On  December  15, 
1827,  he  is  described  as  "  quite  mad  upon  the  Catholic 
question."  (ib.  i.  117.)  On  January  12,  1829,  Lady 
Conyngham's  son,  Lord  Mount  Charles,  who  was  always  about 
the  King,  told  Greville  that  he  "  verily  believed  the  King 
would  go  mad  on  the  Catholic  question,"  so  violent  was  his 
language.  The  King  declared  himself  as  ready  as  his  father 
had  been  to  lay  his  head  on  the  block  rather  than  yield. 
(ib.  i.  157.)  On  March  1  the  reports  were  that  the  King 
was  "  ill,  if  not  mad  "  ;  nothing  but  the  removal  of  the 
Cumberland  brother  would  restore  him  to  peace.  On  March  2 
a  three  hours'  interview  with  the  King,  who  ended  by  kiss- 
ing him,  left  the  Duke  "  much  exhausted."  (Ellenborough, 
i.  373.) 

On  March  4  the  Duke  and  Peel  and  the  Chancellor  were 
summoned  to  Windsor  for  an  interview,  during  which  the 
"  King  talked  for  six  hours."     He  talked  of  the  greatest  pain 


The  Battle  of  the  Catholics  127 

with  which  he  had  assented  to  allowing  the  Cabinet  to  offer 
their  collective  advice  on  the  question,  and  the  still  greater 
pain  with  which  he  realised  that  he  had  no  option  but  to 
comply  with  it.  He  asked  for  further  explanations.  When 
Peel  replied  that  it  was  proposed  to  repeal  the  Declaration 
against  Transubstantiation,  and  to  modify  the  oath  of 
supremacy,  the  King  flared  up  :  "  What  is  this  ?  You 
surely  do  not  mean  to  alter  the  ancient  oath  of  supremacy  ?  " 
In  vain  each  Minister  in  turn  explained  that  the  new  oath 
would  only  commit  the  Roman  Catholic  to  a  disclaimer  of 
any  temporal,  not  of  any  spiritual  or  ecclesiastical  jurisdic- 
tion within  the  realm ;  that  otherwise  the  relief  would 
amount  to  nothing.  The  King  declared  they  had  misunder- 
stood one  another,  that  he  could  not  assent,  and  he  accepted 
their  resignation.  {Peel,  i.  343-6.)  Peel  adds  that  at  part- 
ing the  King  "  took  leave  of  us  with  great  composure  and 
great  kindness,  gave  to  each  of  us  a  salute  on  each  cheek." 
But  Lord  Ellenborough  tells  a  different  tale.  According  to 
him,  the  Duke  said  :  "  He  never  witnessed  a  more  painful 
scene.  He  was  so  evidently  insane.  He  had  taken  some 
brandy  and  water  before  he  joined  them,  which  he  continued 
to  drink  during  the  conference.  During  six  hours  they  did 
not  speak  fifteen  minutes.  The  King  objected  to  every 
part  of  the  Bill.  He  would  not  hear  it."  The  result  was 
that  Peel  was  to  declare  next  day  in  the  Commons  that  the 
Relief  Bill  must  be  dropped  owing  to  his  being  no 
longer  Minister.  But  the  same  night  the  King  wrote  to 
the  Duke  to  say  that  he  consented  to  the  Bill,  though  "  with 
infinite  pain." 

"  It  is  impossible,"  wrote  Lord  Ellenborough,  Privy  Seal, 
of  this  incident,  "  not  to  feel  the  most  perfect  contempt 
for  the  King's  conduct.  We  should  be  justified  in 
declaring  we  will  have  no  further  intercourse  with  one  who 
has  not  treated  us  like  a  gentleman."  And  certainly  the 
episode  was  not  one  which  reflected  much  glory  on  the  inner 
working  of  our  monarchy. 

But  the  battle  continued  to  rage  all  through  March, 
the  King  on  March  9  being  described  as  having  been  in  such 
a  state  of  excitement  that  the  Ministers  feared  he  would  go 
mad.     (Greville,  i.  191.)     On  March  1  the  Duke  had  laboured 


128  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

to  keep  the  King  to  his  concessions  and  to  get  the  Duke  of 
Cumberland  out  of  the  country  ;  but  neither  would  His 
Grace  go  nor  would  the  King  suffer  him  to  be  away  from 
Windsor.  (Colchester,  iii.  602.)  Individual  peers  desired 
special  audiences  with  the  King  to  persuade  him  to  dissolve 
Parliament.  The  idea  was  even  conceived  of  a  joint  attack 
by  peers  on  the  King,  though  no  such  addresses  are  constitu- 
tionally presentable  at  levees,  nor  except  by  single  peers 
at  any  time.  There  was  also  an  idea  of  Lord  Winchelsea's 
marching  down  to  Windsor  at  the  head  of  25,000  men. 
(Greville,  i.  188.)  The  Duke  of  Newcastle  did  effect  an 
audience,  at  which  he  urged  the  King  to  make  known  his 
sentiments  before  the  matter  reached  the  Lords,  so  that  Peers 
voting  for  the  measure  might  not  be  misled  by  ignorance  of 
his  wishes  ;  the  very  plan  that  George  III.  had  employed 
against  the  East  India  Bill.  (Colchester,  iii.  607.)  The  Duke 
of  Wellington  had  to  warn  the  King  that  if  he  allowed  Peers 
to  present  addresses  to  him  at  private  audiences,  they 
virtually  usurped  the  functions  of  the  Secretary  of  State. 
And  if  the  King  had  not  refused  to  receive  a  petition  against 
the  Bill  at  the  hands  of  his  brother  of  Cumberland,  instead 
of  through  Peel,  the  responsible  Minister,  the  Government 
intended  to  resign.  On  March  27  the  King  told  Lord  Mans- 
field that  he  would  refuse  his  consent  to  the  Bill  if  it  was  only 
carried  by  five  in  the  Lords  ;  and  there  was  an  ominous 
interview  of  four  hours  between  the  King  and  Lord  Eldon 
which  portended  a  change  of  Government.  "  Really," 
commented  Lord  Ellenborough,  "  the  King's  conduct  is 
most  dishonourable  towards  the  Government." 

But  the  Bill  got  carried  at  last — by  320  to  142  in  the 
Commons  on  March  29,  1829,  and  by  213  to  109  in  the  Lords 
on  April  10  ;  it  received  the  Royal  assent  on  April  13.  And 
thus,  after  this  prodigious  battle,  a  measure  well  calculated 
to  confer  happiness  on  Ireland  and  to  add  strength  to  the 
Empire  found  its  place  in  the  Statute  Book.  Lord  Grenville, 
writing  to  Lord  Buckingham  on  April  14,  1829,  was  able  to 
congratulate  himself  that  he  had  not  lived  in  vain.  (Bucking- 
ham's George  IV.,  ii.  394.)  That  the  measure  had  not  passed 
thirty  years  before  was  due  mainly  to  the  prejudices  of  two 
monarchs  of  very  limited  capacity,  on  whom  the  Constitu- 


The  Battle  of  the  Catholics  1 29 

tion  had  conferred  powers  far  in  excess  of  their  personal 
deserts. 

The  measure  failed  of  its  pacifying  effect  owing  to  the 
unfortunate  decision  of  the  Cabinet  not  to  suffer  O'Connell 
to  take  his  seat  for  County  Clare,  but  the  provision  in  the  Bill 
that  made  a  second  election  necessary  before  he  could  do  so 
was  a  concession  to  the  personal  feelings  of  the  King.  It 
would  also  have  reconciled  Irish  opinion  to  the  disfranchise- 
ment of  the  Forty-shilling  Freeholders  which  accompanied 
emancipation,  had  their  great  leader  not  been  treated  in  a 
manner  which  deprived  the  Act  of  half  the  grace  of  the 
political  concession. 

But  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  troubles  did  not  end  with 
the  passing  of  the  Catholic  Relief  Bill  ;  for  behind  the  Minister 
stood  the  Royal  brother,  the  secret  Minister  intriguing  against 
the  avowed  one.  So  strong  was  the  Duke  of  Cumberland's 
hope  of  prevailing  on  the  King  to  dismiss  his  Ministers  and  to 
form  a  Ministry  created  by  himself  that  he  decided  to  continue 
to  reside  in  the  country.  (Greville,  i.  225.)  He  swore  that 
he  would  not  leave  the  country  till  he  had  turned  out  the 
Ministry.  (May  1,  1829,  Ellenborough,  ii.  28.)  Lord  Ellen- 
borough  says  that  the  King  hated  his  brother  and  even  wished 
his  death,  but  that  he  crouched  to  him  ;  the  King,  "  our 
master,  being  the  weakest  man  in  England."     (ib.  ii.  47.) 

The  Duke  of  Cumberland  did  all  he  could  to  set  the  King 
against  his  Prime  Minister,  whom  he  used  to  speak  of  in 
mockery  as  King  Arthur,  (ib.  i.  227.)  All  the  Whigs  shared 
the  hatred  of  this  King,  whose  alliance  with  them  in  his  youth 
had  so  embittered  the  life  of  his  father  ;  but  his  hatred  ex- 
tended, says  Greville,  to  the  best  men  of  all  parties.  He 
liked  none  but  such  as  were  subservient  to  himself,  nor  did 
one  great  object  connected  with  the  national  glory  or  pros- 
perity ever  enter  his  brain,     (ib.  i.  219.) 

The  King  nursed  his  defeat.  On  May  14,  1829,  he  turned 
his  back  at  a  levee  on  the  Bishops  who  had  voted  for  the 
Bill.  (Greville,  i.  210.)  He  was  exceedingly  angry  with  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  for  attending  a  dinner,  "  very  fine  and 
very  dull,"  given  in  his  honour  on  May  17  by  the  Duke  of 
Norfolk,  and  he  openly  avowed  his  intention  of  getting  rid 
of  his  Ministers  ;  the  Duke  had  to  defend  his  right  to  dine 
9 


130  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

with  whomsoever  he  liked,  and  to  invite  whom  he  liked. 
(Ellenborough,  ii.  37-9.) 

The  position  was  well-nigh  impossible.  By  September  24 
the  Duke  had  given  up  the  King  as  "  a  bad  job  "  ;  saw  him 
very  seldom,  because  what  he  did  one  day  he  undid  the  next. 
The  Duke  was  in  despair  ;  for  the  King  had  no  constancy  ; 
there  was  no  depending  on  him  from  one  day  to  another. 
(ib.  ii.  100.)  "  Nothing,"  writes  Lord  Ellenborough  on 
January  2,  1830,  "  can  have  been  more  scandalous  than 
the  King's  conduct  to  the  Duke.  He  has  never  given  his 
Government  the  fair  support.  Say  what  the  Duke  will,  he 
of  Cumberland  is  believed."     (ib.  ii.  165.) 

And  such  as  the  monarch  was,  such  was  his  Court.  "  A 
more  despicable  scene  cannot  be  exhibited  than  that  which 
our  Court  presents  ;  every  base,  low,  and  unmanly  propensity 
with  selfishness,  avarice."  (Greville,  i.  212.)  In  the  reigns 
of  both  George  IV.  and  his  father  Court  functions  were 
habitually  used  for  political  pressure.  As  the  King  at  a  levee 
turned  his  back  on  the  Bishops  who  had  voted  for  the  Catholic 
Relief  Bill,  so,  when  O'Connell  passed  him,  he  said  in  a  loud 
aside  :  "  Damn  the  fellow  !  What  does  he  come  here  for  ?  " 
(ib.  i.  210,  May  14,  1829.)  For  the  forbidden  verb  he 
had  a  singular  fondness.  When  told  that  Watson  was 
waiting  in  the  ante-room  to  see  him  about  something,  he 
exclaimed  :  "  Damn  Watson  !  Let  him  wait !  "  (ib.  i.  158) ; 
doubtless  a  reasonable  feeling  about  Watson.  At  another 
time  he  said  he  would  be  damned  if  Lord  Ellenborough 
should  ever  dine  in  his  house,  (ib.  i.  193.)  But  his  Court 
was  a  dull  one,  despite  this  lively  language.  "  Nothing 
could  be  more  insupportable  than  to  live  at  this  Court," 
remarked  Greville.  "  The  dulness  must  be  excessive,  and 
the  people  who  compose  his  habitual  society  are  the  most 
insipid  and  uninteresting  that  can  be  found."  Lady  Conyng- 
ham  looked  bored  to  death  and  never  spoke,  though  the  King 
talked  without  ceasing,     (ib.  i.  101,  June  17,  1829.) 

Y?t  Lord  Ellenborough  was  as  much  impressed  by  the 
King's  character  as  the  Duke  of  Wellington  was  by  his 
courage.  The  King  died  on  June  26,  1830,  but  on  the  night 
of  June  8,  in  talk  with  Sir  W.  Knighton,  he  was  "  as  amusing 
as  ever  "  ;  "in  constitution  and  in  mind  certainly  a  wonderful 


The  Battle  of  the  Catholics  131 

man."  (Memoirs,  ii.  266.)  Nevertheless,  his  death  was  "  one 
of  the  fortunate  events  which  saved  the  Duke  of  Wellington." 
Lord  Ellenborough  did  not  know  how  the  Ministry  could 
have  got  on,  had  the  King  lived  two  months  more.  The  Duke 
of  Cumberland  would  certainly  have  triumphed,  and  it  is 
possible  that,  as  he  destroyed  the  Constitution  of  Hanover 
when  he  became  its  King,  so  he  might  have  dealt  with  the 
British  Constitution.  It  was  a  kindly  dispensation  of  fortune 
that  saved  us  from  the  Duke  of  Cumberland  as  Prime  Minister 
or  as  King.  The  Princess  Victoria's  immediate  successor, 
the  man  "  with  the  mustaches,"  as  the  King  of  the  Belgians 
described  him,  was  indeed  enough,  as  he  said,  to  frighten  the 
Liberal  Government  then  in  power  in  England  into  "  the 
most  fervent  attachment  "  for  the  coming  Queen.  (Queen's 
Letters,  i.  93,  June  17,  1837.) 


REIGN  III :   WILLIAM  IV 

CHAPTER    I 

The  Battle  of  Reform 

When  William  IV.  succeeded  his  brother,  he  did  a  most 
popular  thing  :  he  dismissed  all  his  late  brother's  French 
cooks.  He  would  have  no  foreigners  about  him.  (Ellen- 
borough's  Diary,  ii.  299.)  He  was  consistently  a  strong 
Gallophobe.  Greville  tells  how  once  at  a  dinner  given  to  a 
regiment  at  Windsor,  the  King  said  :  "  Whether  at  peace  or 
at  war  with  France,  I  shall  always  consider  her  as  our  natural 
enemy."  On  which  Greville  commented  :  "  If  he  was  not 
such  an  ass  that  nobody  does  anything  but  laugh  at  what  he 
says,  this  would  be  very  important."  (iii.  34,  September 
10,  1833.) 

Two  years  before  his  accession  the  Duke  of  Clarence  had 
struck  the  world  as  strikingly  eccentric.  Writing  on  July 
16,  1828,  Lord  Ellenborough  says  :  "  The  idea  is  that  the 
Duke  of  Clarence  is  rather  mad  "  ;  on  August  8,  "  he  is  now 
and  then  rather  mad  "  ;  "  there  are  all  sorts  of  stories  of 
the  Lord  High  Admiral,  and  the  world  says  he  is  mad." 
(ib.  i.  165,  193,  201.) 

The  King  was  fond  of  making  speeches,  which  were  a 
terror  to  all  who  heard  them.  On  one  occasion,  when  he 
addressed  a  deputation  from  Cambridge  on  the  Catholic 
question,  Lord  Ellenborough  "  covered  his  face,"  and  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  would  beat  a  retreat  when  His  Majesty 
began  to  speak,  (ib.  ii.  319.)  At  a  great  dinner  at  St. 
James's,  "  after  dinner  the  King  made  a  speech  which  made 
his  Ministers'  hearts  fail  within  them  "  (ib.  ii.  324)  ;  and  a  few 
days  later  his  speeches  "  alarmed  and  pained  "  his  guests, 
though  he  did  less  mischief  than  Lord  Ellenborough  expected, 


134  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

and  "  as  all  the  people  present  were  his  friends,  he  only  let 
down  the  dignity  of  the  Crown."     {Diary,  ii.  33.) 

But  in  spite  of  these  drawbacks  the  King  soon  rose  to  the 
position  of  his  new  and  undesired  dignity  ;  nor  can  any  one 
read  his  correspondence  with  Lord  Grey  during  the  years 
of  the  Reform  Ministry  (1831-32)  without  a  much  enhanced 
opinion  both  of  the  character  and  capacity  of  the  King. 
Although  his  letters  were,  in  the  main,  the  composition  of  his 
secretary,  Sir  Herbert  Taylor,  the  spirit  revealed  in  them  of 
constant  tact  and  courtesy  is  that  of  the  King,  for  whom  it 
is  clear  that  his  Minister  felt  much  real  affection. 

In  fairness,  this  must  be  set  against  Greville's  account, 
who  sums  up  William's  reign  as  follows  : — "  William  IV.  was 
a  man  who,  coming  to  the  throne  at  the  mature  age  of  sixty- 
five,  was  so  excited  by  the  exaltation  that  he  nearly  went  mad, 
and  distinguished  himself  by  a  thousand  extravagances  of 
language  and  conduct,  to  the  alarm  or  amusement  of  all  who 
witnessed  the  strange  freaks  ;  and  though  he  was  shortly 
afterwards  sobered  down  into  more  becoming  habits,  he 
always  continued  to  be  something  of  a  blackguard  and 
something  more  of  a  buffoon.  It  is  but  fair  to  his  memory, 
at  the  same  time,  to  say  that  he  was  a  good-natured,  kind- 
hearted,  and  well-meaning  man,  and  he  always  acted  an 
honourable  and  straightforward,  if  not  always  a  sound  and 
discreet,  part."     {Memoirs,  iii.  418.) 

His  lot  fell  on  a  time  of  extraordinary  political  difficulty, 
as  was  not  forgotten  by  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  who  said  of 
him  in  the  House  of  Lords  the  day  after  his  death  that 
"  probably  there  never  was  a  sovereign  who  .  .  .  encom- 
passed by  so  many  difficulties  more  successfully  met  them 
than  he  did  upon  every  occasion  on  which  he  had  to  engage 
them,"  and  he  spoke  of  his  kindness,  condescension,  and 
favour  towards  himself  as  beyond  his  power  to  forget  so  long 
as  he  lived.     {Maxims,  etc.,  384.) 

William's  short  reign  of  seven  years  (1830-37)  is  from 
the  constitutional  point  of  view  the  most  interesting  of  all 
in  our  history.  It  was  really  one  long  crisis,  with  imminent 
possibilities  of  revolution  in  England  and  of  rebellion  in 
Ireland.  Both  were  happily  averted  by  the  unfailing  nerve 
and  tact  shown  by  Lord  Grey  over  the  Reform  Bill  ;    and 


The  Battle  of  Reform  1 35 

Creevey's  observation  is  no  overstatement  that  this  difficult 
measure  was  "  carried  exclusively  by  him,  for  without  his 
character  and  talents  no  man  or  men  could  have  done  or 
even  attempted  it ;  nor  would  any  sovereign  have  trusted 
any  other  man  to  do  it."     (ii.  293.) 

But  the  King  also  is  entitled  to  his  share  of  praise  in 
the  matter ;  for  had  he  not  in  the  main  supported  his 
Minister,  despite  his  own  personal  opinions,  the  worst  might 
have  happened.  Finding  the  Duke  of  Wellington  in  office 
at  his  accession  in  June  1830,  he  deplored  the  downfall  of 
his  Government  on  November  16.  It  seemed  so  unnecessary 
for  the  Duke,  on  the  first  night  of  the  session  (November  8), 
just  after  the  King's  speech,  to  have  delivered  that  "  famous 
philippic  against  Reform  which  sealed  his  fate."  The  effect 
was  greater  than  anything  Greville  had  seen  ;  it  destroyed 
what  little  popularity  the  Duke  had  left.  (Greville,  ii.  55.) 
Nothing  could  exceed  the  consequent  excitement  and  terror. 
The  Government  thought  it  safer  to  postpone  the  King's  visit 
to  the  City,  and  so  great  a  riot  was  expected  on  November  9, 
that  special  troops  were  called  up  to  London,  and  the  Duke 
expected  an  attack  on  Apsley  House.  So  his  defeat  on  the 
Civil  List  on  November  15,  by  233  to  204,  brought  his 
Ministry  to  a  close,  and  the  King,  though  he  received  his 
fallen  Ministers  with  the  greatest  kindness,  and  even  shed 
tears,  accepted  their  resignation  without  remonstrance. 
(ib.  ii.  64.)  Yet  every  one  of  them,  except  the  Duke,  in 
taking  leave  of  the  King,  acknowledged  to  him  that  some 
Reform  was  necessary.  (Correspondence  of  Lord  Grey  with 
William  IV.,  i.  186.) 

On  November  17  the  King  received  Lord  Grey  with  every 
possible  kindness,  giving  him  carte  blanche  to  form  a  new 
administration,  and  placing  even  the  Royal  Household, 
much  to  its  disgust,  at  the  Minister's  disposal.  Greville 
highly  commends  the  King  for  his  perfect  behaviour  on  the 
occasion,  with  no  intriguing  or  underhand  communication 
with  any  one.  "  He  turns  out  an  incomparable  King  and 
deserves  all  the  encomiums  that  are  lavished  on  him." 
(ib.  ii.  65.) 

But  the  condition  of  the  country  was  never  worse  ;  every 
post  bringing  fresh  accounts  of  rick-burnings,  destruction  of 


136  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

machinery,  associations  of  labourers  ;  whilst  Ireland  was  in 
a  worse  state  than  before  Catholic  Emancipation,  thanks  to 
George  IV. 's  ill-advised  action  against  O'Connell's  taking  his 
seat  ;  which  had  driven  him  by  way  of  revenge  to  agitation 
against  the  Union  itself.  "  What  a  state  of  terror  and  alarm 
we  are  in,"  writes  Greville  on  January  25,  1831.  When  the 
King  returned  from  the  play  on  February  22,  he  was 
"  hooted  and  pelted,"  and  a  stone,  shivering  a  window  of  his 
coach,  fell  on  the  Duke  of  Cumberland's  lap.  (ib.  ii.  120.) 
Sir  W.  Napier  thought  a  revolution  inevitable,  and  Greville 
reflected  that  if  the  King  died  and  the  Duke  of  Cumberland 
succeeded,  "  that  would  be  a  good  moment  for  dispensing 
with  the  Royal  office."  It  was  little  more  than  six  months 
since  the  French  Revolution  of  July  1830  had  ended  in 
the  abdication  of  Charles  X.,  and  the  infection  seemed  to  be 
in  the  air.  And  the  King  lived,  for  the  most  part,  at  Brighton, 
"  a  strange  life,  with  tag-rag  and  bobtail  about  him."  (ib. 
ii.  109.) 

But  he  had  the  firmest  determination  not  to  abate  one 
jot  or  tittle  of  his  rights  as  monarch.  When  Lord  Holland, 
on  receiving  from  him  the  seals  of  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster, 
made  some  remark  which  he  misinterpreted  as  meaning 
some  interference  by  Parliament  with  his  rights  over  the 
Duchy,  he  wrote  in  consternation  to  Lord  Grey,  deprecating 
any  act  which  should  create  the  impression  that  he  was 
"  disposed  tamely  to  submit  to  invasions  of  his  just  rights," 
or  which  would  "  lower  and  degrade  him  into  the  state  and 
condition  of  absolute  and  entire  dependence,  as  a  pensioner 
of  the  House  of  Commons."  His  relief  was  great  on  receiving 
Lord  Grey's  assurance  that  nothing  of  the  sort  was  intended. 
(Correspondence,  i.  9-14.)  And  the  inability  of  the  Cabinet, 
owing  to  the  opposition  of  one  of  its  members,  to  propose  to 
Parliament  a  grant  of  £25,000  for  the  outfit  of  the  Queen, 
showed  the  strength  of  the  current  that  was  flowing  against 
the  monarchy.  The  philosophy  with  which  both  the  King 
and  Queen  accepted  their  disappointment  afforded  some 
relief  to  Lord  Grey's  annoyance. 

This  enhances  the  merit  of  the  King  in  bowing  to  the 
necessity  of  reform.  His  letters  show  how  he  disliked 
the   stirring   of   this  "  perilous   question,"   and   how  gladly 


The  Battle  of  Reform  1 37 

he  would  have  deferred  it,  though  "  anxious  not  to  embarrass 
Lord  Grey  by  objections  which  could  be  considered  frivolous 
or  captious."  All  he  bargained  for  was  that  reform  should  be 
divested,  as  far  as  possible,  "  of  all  that  was  calculated  to 
deprive  the  Monarchy  of  its  legitimate  rights  and  attributes, 
in  its  immediate  or  progressive  operation."  But  he  de- 
precated the  shortening  of  Parliaments  or  any  increase  of 
members.  He  hoped  that  such  sentiments  were  neither  un- 
constitutional nor  arbitrary,  nor  indicative  of  any  "  obstinate 
adherence  to  prejudices  which  would  be  ill-suited  to  the 
times."     (January  16,  1831,  ib.  i.  67,  68.) 

But  it  was  over  the  details  of  a  Reform  Bill  rather  than 
over  its  principle  that  difficulty  was  likely  to  come.  And 
come  it  soon  did.  The  King's  personality  made  a  vast 
difference  in  the  ultimate  Bill.  In  the  Durham  Preliminary 
Report,  on  which  the  Reform  Bill  was  founded,  the  shortening 
of  Parliaments  to  five  years  and  election  by  Ballot  were  among 
the  recommendations.  In  deference  to  the  King's  objection, 
Lord  Grey  withdrew  the  former  as  a  point  of  "  compara- 
tively inferior  importance."  (January  17,  1831.)  He  also 
cut  out  the  Ballot  before  submitting  the  Report  to  the  King. 
That,  said  the  King,  removed  an  insuperable  bar  from  his 
ultimate  assent  to  the  Bill  ;  for  "  nothing  should  ever  induce 
him  to  yield  to  the  Ballot,"  a  practice  which  "  would  abolish 
the  influence  of  fear  and  shame  and  would  be  inconsistent 
with  the  manly  spirit  and  free  avowal  of  opinion  which  dis- 
tinguished the  people  of  England."  In  further  examination 
of  the  Report  he  proceeded  to  criticise  its  proposals  in  a  spirit 
of  reluctant  assent  to  any  Reform  at  all ;  the  evils  of  the 
actual  system,  he  argued,  existed  more  in  theory  than  in 
practice,  nor  were  public  meetings  a  just  criterion  of  the  real 
sentiments  of  the  people.  Whoever  reads  his  long  letter  of 
February  4,  1831,  will  be  dispossessed  for  ever  of  the  idea  that 
the  monarch's  opinions  go  for  nothing  in  the  framing  of 
legislation.  The  whole  later  history  of  England  might  have 
been  different  had  William  IV.  not  put  his  veto  on  the  Ballot 
when  the  Bill  was  still  in  embryo. 

Lord  Grey's  account  of  the  proposal  of  the  Ballot  in  the 
Report  was  that  it  was  not  a  measure  to  which  the  framers  of 
the  Report  (Lord  Durham,  Lord  John  Russell,  Lord  Dun- 


138  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

cannon,  and  Sir  J.  Graham)  were  themselves  partial,  but  a 
concession  made  to  facilitate  the  raising  of  the  elective 
franchise  in  cities  and  boroughs,  which  would,  of  itself,  have 
militated  against  the  dangers  of  its  adoption.  Lord  Grey 
disclaimed  any  personal  preference  for  it ;  though  some  of 
the  Cabinet  favoured  it,  the  majority  were  adverse.  But 
the  King's  opposition  settled  the  matter  :  "  the  strong  and 
decided  opinion  expressed  by  Your  Majesty  must  operate 
as  a  command  which  Earl  Grey  feels  himself  bound  to  obey." 
(February  5,  Correspondence,  i.  106.) 

On  the  question  of  reducing  royal  pensions  on  the  Civil 
List,  the  King  fortunately  found  his  Minister  in  agreement 
with  himself.  The  reduction  of  existing  pensions  was  a 
question  on  which  the  King  felt  bound  to  make  a  stand,  as  it 
seemed  to  him  to  involve  the  constitutional  attributes  of  the 
Monarchy,  and  to  be  "  one  feature  of  a  systematic  attack 
upon  the  power  and  prerogatives  of  the  Crown."  (ib.  i. 
120.)  Lord  Grey's  own  feelings  were  so  much  in  unison  with 
the  King's — to  whom  he  admitted  a  debt  of  gratitude  that 
he  could  never  repay — that  he  even  contemplated  retirement 
if  the  House  of  Commons  pressed  the  subject,  (ib.  i.  115, 
February  7,  1831.)  The  matter  was  settled  to  the  King's 
satisfaction,  but  the  publication  of  the  Pension  List  had 
raised  a  wish  for  its  reduction,  as  Grey  said,  not  only  in  the 
"  clamorous  part  of  the  public,"  but  among  men  of  sober 
character,  and  even  of  Tory  politics,  so  that  even  rich  City 
merchants  had  refused  to  sign  a  resolution  in  support  of 
Government,  by  reason  of  its  refusal  to  reduce  these  pensions. 
(ib.  i.  125,  February  11,  1831.) 

The  King  suspected  that  Committees  of  the  Commons 
on  the  Civil  List  and  Salaries  were  a  usurpation  of  his 
own  functions.  He  was  confident  that  the  history  of  the 
country  had  "  never  before  exhibited  an  instance  wherein  a 
Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  had  presumed  to  dictate 
to  the  Sovereign  how  he  was  to  conduct  his  Civil  List  in  all  its 
minute  details,  and  the  amount  of  the  salaries  which  he  was 
to  grant  to  each  and  every  one  of  his  own  personal  servants  "  ; 
and  he  wished  an  inquiry  made  by  the  Crown  lawyers  and 
the  Lord  Chancellor.  (March  3,  1831.)  He  complained  of 
the  systematic  determination  betrayed  in  the  debates  on  the 


The  Battle  of  Reform  1 39 

subject  to  reduce  the  influence  of  the  Crown,  and  to  lower 
the  dignity  of  the  Monarchy,  (ib.  i.  143,  March  11.)  The 
proposal  to  reduce  the  salaries  of  the  Lords  and  Grooms  of  the 
Bedchamber  from  £13,171  to  £10,000  entailed  consequences 
which  were  "  not  very  palatable  "  ;  so  that  great  was  the 
frightened  monarch's  relief  when  the  Lord  Chancellor  and  the 
Crown  lawyers  agreed  that  the  Committees  "  had  exceeded 
and  were  exceeding  "  their  powers,  (ib.  i.  152,  March  7, 
1831.) 

As  early  as  March  19  it  became  apparent  that  the  opposi- 
tion to  Reform  might  be  successful.  A  Cabinet  meeting  was 
held  that  evening  to  consider  a  possible  dissolution,  and  Lord 
Grey  begged  Sir  Herbert  Taylor  to  ascertain  the  King's 
views  on  the  subject.  These  were  expressed  next  day  in  no 
uncertain  terms.  To  a  dissolution  it  was  "  his  bounden 
duty  most  strenuously  to  object."  In  the  excited  state  of 
the  country  he  feared  rioting  in  England  and  rebellion  in 
Ireland.  His  secretary  felt  that  these  contingencies  had 
taken  so  firm  a  hold  on  his  mind  that  no  argument  could 
shake  him  ;  his  objections  must  be  looked  on  as  "  final  and 
conclusive."  Above  all,  he  feared  that  a  new  Parliament 
would  cause  a  schism  between  the  two  Houses,  the  conse- 
quences of  which  always  presented  themselves  to  him  "  in  a 
most  fearful  light."  Fortunately,  the  carrying  of  the  second 
reading  on  March  22  by  a  majority  of  one  rendered  dissolu- 
tion unnecessary  and  averted  the  crisis.  But  had  the 
majority  been  the  other  way,  the  resignation  of  the  Ministry 
must  have  followed  the  King's  refusal  to  dissolve,  and  with 
greater  possibilities  of  disturbance  than  would  have  attended 
a  General  Election. 

But  the  difficulty  was  only  averted  for  a  moment,  for 
within  less  than  a  month,  on  April  19,  the  Government's 
defeat  by  299  to  291  on  General  Gascoigne's  motion  com- 
pelled the  Cabinet  to  press  for  a  dissolution.  It  is  difficult 
to  see  what  other  course  was  possible,  and  the  King,  in  a  long 
letter,  waived  most  reluctantly  his  strong  objections.  He 
continued  to  speak  of  Reform  as  "  a  fearful  experiment,"  and 
to  the  times  as  "  awful,"  and  to  advocate  modifications. 
He  referred  to  the  strides  made  in  the  country  by  the  spirit 
of  revolution  from  recent  events  in  France  and  Belgium 


140  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

(May  15,  1831) ;  he  had  noticed  "  with  extreme  pain  and 
alarm  the  early  effects  produced  in  this  country  by  the  con- 
tagious example  of  the  recent  French  Revolution  "  following 
so  closely  on  his  accession,     (ib.  i.  267.) 

The  dissolution  was  attended  by  dramatic  circumstances. 
On  April  21  there  was  a  scene  of  considerable  disorder  in  the 
Commons,  but  it  was  nothing  to  that  in  the  Lords.  There 
was  indescribable  confusion  and  noise  from  one  end  of  the 
House  to  the  other,  these  passionless  legislators  actually 
scuffling  and  shaking  their  hands  at  one  another  in  anger. 
(Buckingham's  Court,  etc.,  of  William  IV.,  i.  286  ;  Greville, 
ii.  139.)  Suddenly  there  were  cries  of  "  The  King  !  "  followed 
by  the  announcement  of  a  prorogation  and  dissolution. 

To  the  Conservative  party  this  very  natural  dissolution 
seemed  almost  revolutionary.  Its  leader,  the  Duke  of 
Wellington,  on  May  21,  1831,  wrote  to  the  Duke  of  Bucking- 
ham that  he  did  not  believe  that  the  King  of  England  "  had 
taken  a  step  so  fatal  to  his  monarchy  since  the  day  that 
Charles  I.  passed  the  Act  to  deprive  himself  of  the  powers  of 
proroguing  and  dissolving  Parliament,  as  King  William  IV. 
did  on  the  22nd  of  April  last."  (Buckingham,  i.  296.)  Even 
after  the  Election  had  passed  off  without  the  dire  results  the 
King  had  feared,  and  the  King  himself  was  forced  to  admit 
that  the  result  had  been  to  quench  those  demands  for  annual 
Parliaments,  universal  suffrage,  vote  by  ballot  and  repeal 
of  the  Union,  the  Duke  thought  that  the  possible  creation 
of  peers  could  only  be  "  for  the  purpose  of  the  destruction 
of  the  Monarchy."  (July  22,  1831,  ib.  i.  333.)  He  be- 
lieved that  if  the  King  were  to  quarrel  with  Lord  Grey  to- 
morrow about  the  coronation  robes  or  any  other  such  point, 
and  to  wish  to  change  his  Ministers,  the  Monarchy  would  be 
overturned  (ib.  i.  336,  July  28) ;  so  insecure  seemed  the 
Monarchy  at  that  time  to  partisan  imagination. 

Then,  again,  the  clash  between  the  two  Houses  loomed 
on  the  horizon,  and  the  King  began  to  entreat  for  such  con- 
cessions on  the  original  scheme  as  would  soften  the  hostility 
of  the  Lords.  Grey  replied  that  such  concessions  would 
only  weaken  the  Bill  and  would  in  no  wise  buy  off  such 
hostility.  Some  acerbity  began  to  affect  the  correspondence. 
He  had  previously  had  to  complain  that  the  opposition  of 


The  Battle  of  Reform  1 4 1 

persons  in  the  Queen's  household  and  the  declared  hostility  of 
the  Princesses  had  roused  most  unfair  suspicions  of  the  King's 
own  loyalty  to  Reform.  (Correspondence,  i.  260,  May  8.) 
On  June  6  the  complaint  was  of  persons  who,  though  voting 
against  the  Government,  lost  nothing  either  in  their  official 
situation  or  in  the  favour  of  the  Court,  (ib.  i.  287.)  The 
King  retorted  that  "  he  had  not  hesitated  to  discard  from 
his  household  any  individual,  whether  holding  a  superior  or 
inferior  position,  who,  being  a  member  of  either  House,  had 
withheld  or  stated  his  intention  of  withholding  his  support 
from  the  Government  upon  the  question  of  Reform."  But 
he  could  not  sacrifice  lifelong  friendships  to  political  con- 
siderations ;  he  had  "  ever  avoided  to  attach  himself  ex- 
clusively to  any  party,  or  to  yield  to  the  influence  of  political 
opinion  or  feeling  in  the  selection  of  his  friends  and  associ- 
ates." (ib.  i.  290,  291.)  Lord  Grey  had  to  disclaim  the  pre- 
sumption of  objecting  to  the  King's  avoiding  all  distinction 
of  party  in  his  private  society ;  but  he  stuck  to  his  protest, 
that  the  "  active  and  avowed  hostility  of  persons  connected 
by  official  situations  with  Your  Majesty's  Court  had  un- 
doubtedly the  effect  of  diminishing  the  strength  of  the 
Government  in  the  House  of  Lords."  (ib.  i.  295,  296,  June  7.) 
Again,  "  a  most  unfair  use  was  made  of  His  Majesty's  kind- 
ness to  those  who,  either  by  themselves  or  their  connections, 
held  places  at  Court  "  ;  but  perhaps  he  had  written  too 
hastily,  and  would  never  revert  to  the  subject,  (ib.  i.  298, 
June  7.)  The  incident  well  illustrates  one  of  the  greatest 
difficulties  which  has  always  marred  the  smooth  working  of 
the  constitutional  machine  ;  the  frequent  antithesis  between 
the  monarch's  environment  and  the  monarch's  ministers. 

On  September  8,  1831,  the  Coronation  came  as  a 
momentary  relief  to  the  political  tension.  But  it  did  not 
pass  without  a  humiliating  concession  for  the  King.  For 
when  the  Coronation  ceremonial  was  taken  to  him  for  his  ap- 
proval, he  strongly  objected  to  that  portion  of  it  which  com- 
pelled him  to  be  kissed  by  all  the  bishops,  in  succession  to 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury's  kiss,  after  the  latter  had 
spoken  the  words  of  homage.  He  most  sensibly  ordered 
that  part  to  be  struck  out  ;  but,  on  the  Archbishop's  re- 
monstrance, the  King,  as  Greville  says,   "  knocked  under," 


142  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

and  was  obliged  to  submit  to  the  kiss  not  only  of  the 
temporal  but  the  spiritual  Peers  (ii.  189) ;  a  heavy  price  even 
for  kingly  honours. 

But  the  Coronation,  despite  all  this  kissing,  added 
nothing  to  the  King's  wisdom.  Greville  says  that  impres- 
sions on  his  mind  were  like  impressions  on  the  sand.  (ii.  240.) 
In  that  same  month  a  speech  that  he  made  at  St.  James's  at 
the  close  of  a  great  dinner  was  the  talk  of  the  town.  Lord 
Sefton  declared  that  he  had  never  felt  so  ashamed,  and  Lord 
Grey  is  described  as  having  been  ready  to  sink  into  the 
earth,     (ii.  197-8.) 

It  was  a  time  difficult  for  any  statesman  to  weather  ; 
when  nobody  looked  on  any  institution  as  secure  or  any 
interest  as  safe  (Greville,  ii.  286)  ;  when  the  "  awful  thing 
was  the  vast  extent  of  misery  and  distress  which  prevailed, 
and  the  evidence  of  the  rotten  foundation  on  which  the  whole 
fabric  of  this  gorgeous  society  rested  "  ;  when  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  human  beings  were  reduced  to  the  lowest 
stage  of  moral  and  physical  degradation,  with  no  more  of 
the  necessaries  of  life  than  served  to  keep  body  and  soul 
together,  and  whole  classes  of  artisans  lacked  the  means  of 
subsistence,     (ib.  ii.  285.) 

The  Reform  Bill,  having  passed  the  Commons  on 
September  21,  was  wrecked  in  the  Lords  on  second  reading 
on  October  8.  The  clash  the  King  had  feared  had  come  ;  he 
had  always  told  Grey  what  would  happen  if  the  Bill  was  not 
modified  ;  nevertheless,  he  deprecated  the  resignation  of  the 
Ministry.  (Correspondence,  i.  363,  October  8,  1831.)  Their 
decision  was  to  continue  in  office  and  to  bring  in  a  new 
but  equally  efficient  Bill  in  a  fresh  session.  Windows 
were  broken  in  London  ;  Nottingham  Castle  was  burnt ; 
and  before  the  month  of  October  was  out  the  riots  at 
Bristol  indicated  the  rising  temper  of  the  country.  The 
King  naturally  got  nervous,  and  again  pressed  in  any 
future  Bill  for  regard  to  the  opinions  of  the  aristocracy, 
"to  a  majority  of  the  House  of  Lords."  (ib.  i.  380.) 
He  deprecated  representing  such  a  majority,  199  Peers, 
as  a  faction  (ib.  i.  381,  October  17) :  in  allusion  to  Lord 
John  Russell's  famous  remark  at  Birmingham  that  it  was 
impossible  that   "  the  whisper  of  a  faction  should  prevail 


The  Battle  of  Reform  1 43 

against  the  voice  of  a  nation."  The  King  became  terrified 
by  the  prospect  of  a  rejection  of  the  next  Reform  Bill,  and 
the  position  became  well-nigh  impossible  both  for  him  and 
his  Minister.  The  latter  warned  the  King  that  a  second 
rejection  must  be  followed  by  his  resignation,  which  would 
imperil  both  the  peace  of  the  country  and  the  permanent 
interests  of  the  Crown,     (ib.  i.  437,  November  22,  1831.) 

Parliament  was  prorogued  till  December  6,  and  in  the 
meantime  both  political  leaders  were  active.  The  Duke  of 
Wellington  took  the  occasion  of  writing  to  the  King  in 
November  about  the  arming  of  the  Political  Associations,  in 
order  to  try  to  oust  his  rival.  "  I  did  it  at  a  period  of  the 
year  at  which  I  knew  that  if  the  King  wished  to  get  rid  of  the 
bonds  in  which  he  is  held,  I  could  assist  him  in  doing  so. 
There  was  time  to  call  a  new  Parliament,  and  the  sense  of 
the  country  would  have  been  taken  on  a  question  on  which 
there  would  be  no  doubt."  But  the  King  did  not  take  the 
hint,  the  Duke  complaining  that  the  great  mischief  of  all  was 
"  the  weakness  of  our  poor  King,  who  cannot  or  will  not  see  his 
danger,  or  the  road  out  of  it  when  it  is  pointed  out  to  him." 
(Buckingham's  William  IV.,  i.  385-7,  January  2,  1832.) 

Lord  Grey,  on  the  other  hand,  was  doing  what  he  could  to 
influence  individuals,  especially  dignitaries  of  the  Church, 
in  favour  of  the  forthcoming  Bill.  The  Bishop  of  London 
promised  to  vote  for  it,  and  he  mentioned  four  others  as 
specially  hopeful.  The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  would 
not  commit  himself.  Lord  Grey  added  that  he  thought 
nothing  would  so  much  influence  His  Grace  and  most  of  the 
Bishops  as  an  expression  of  the  royal  opinion  on  the  conse- 
quences of  a  second  rejection.  Especially  with  the  Bishop  of 
Worcester  might  His  Majesty's  wishes  be  decisive  ;  and  there 
were  also  Lay  Peers  connected  with  the  Court  who,  not  hold- 
ing offices  themselves,  would  yield,  he  was  sure,  to  a  similar 
influence.  (Correspondence,  i.  444,  November  25.)  There 
was  something  humiliating  in  the  Prime  Minister's  being 
reduced  to  this  sort  of  cadging  for  the  votes  of  the  Spiritual 
Peers,  and  it  received  at  first  prompt  snubbing  from  His 
Majesty.  He  could  not  reconcile  it  with  his  duty  to  exert 
his  influence,  directly  or  indirectly,  with  Spiritual  or  Lay 
Peers  (except  with  those  of  the  latter  belonging  to  his  House- 


144  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

hold)  towards  obtaining  their  assent  to  the  Bill.  (Bucking- 
ham., i.  448,  November  27,  1832.) 

Nevertheless  it  was  nothing  but  the  King's  personal 
influence  that  ultimately  carried  the  Reform  Bill.  On 
December  9  Grey  was  glad  to  hear  that  the  King  proposed 
to  invite  Archbishop  Howley  to  Brighton  ;  he  was  sure  that 
the  King's  opinion  "  would  have  the  most  beneficial  effect 
in  that  quarter."  But  when  the  visit  took  place  on  December 
15-17,  the  King  could  get  nothing  out  of  Archbishop  Howley, 
who  only  "  expressed  himself  very  mildly  "  on  the  subject ; 
and  Grey,  whilst  thanking  the  King  for  his  attempt,  could 
but  "  lament  the  weakness  and  indecision  which  appeared 
to  be  the  prevailing  features  in  His  Grace' s  character. ' '  ( Corre- 
spondence, ii.  19,  33,  48.) 

The  Bishop  of  Worcester  was  worked  on  through  Sir  H. 
Taylor,  who  told  him  that  the  King  thought  any  peers  very 
ill-advised  who  would  refuse  to  let  the  Bill  go  into  Committee. 
Accordingly  the  Bishop  promised  his  vote  for  the  second 
reading,  (ib.  ii.  63,  December  26.)  He  kept  his  promise 
on  April  14,  1832,  when  the  second  reading  was  carried  in 
the  Lords  by  the  narrow  majority  of  9  (184-173),  but  in  May 
he  was  among  the  majority  which  voted  against  the  Govern- 
ment on  Lord  Lyndhurst's  motion  for  postponing  the  dis- 
franchisement of  the  boroughs  on  Schedule  A.  Sir  Herbert 
argued  in  the  same  way  with  Lord  Burghersh,  calculating 
that  he  would  tell  Lord  Wharncliffe  and  Lord  Beverley,  who 
would  naturally  argue  that  the  secretary's  language  clearly 
indicated  His  Majesty's  sentiments.  Of  so  much  weight  was 
the  mere  opinion  of  the  King  in  the  days  of  the  fourth  William. 

But  the  bishops  were  difficult  to  manage.  Most  of  them 
were  opposed  to  the  Government  on  other  questions  besides 
the  Reform  Bill.  On  March  9,  1832,  they  helped  to  defeat 
the  Government  on  a  motion  for  a  Select  Committee  on  the 
Glove  Trade.  The  King  was  concerned  that  so  many  bishops 
were  in  the  majority  ;  and  he  expressed  his  intention  to  Lord 
Grey  to  see  the  Archbishop  of  York  and  "  to  speak  to  him 
seriously  respecting  the  course  which  the  bishops  were 
pursuing."  (ib.  ii.  254,  March  11,  1832.)  The  relationship 
rather  resembled  that  of  a  schoolmaster  to  his  boys. 

On  a  later  occasion,  when  on  a  question  relating  to  Portugal 


The  Battle  of  Reform  1 45 

the  bishops  had  voted  against  the  Government,  the  King 
wrote  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  a  letter  of  severe 
reproof  to  the  bishops  for  so  voting  against  the  Government 
where  no  Church  interests  were  concerned.  (June  28,  1833, 
Greville,  ii.  392.)  For  this  he  was  reproached  with  uncon- 
stitutional action  ;  but  his  defence  was  that  he  hoped  to 
make  them  less  unpopular  through  their  being  induced  to 
take  a  less  prominent  part  in  politics.  He  did  "  not  deny 
that  in  endeavouring  to  moderate  the  inconsiderate  zeal  of 
some  of  the  high  dignitaries  of  the  Church,  he  sought  to 
extricate  himself  and  his  Government  from  difficulty "  ; 
but  he  had  "  an  anxious  desire  to  screen  those  respectable 
individuals  from  the  increasing  effect  of  hostile  feelings  and 
the  popular  clamour  of  which  they  were  becoming  the 
objects."     (Stockmar's  Memoirs,  i.  323.) 

Still  the  creation  of  peers  had  from  the  first  seemed  to 
Lord  Grey  the  only  way  of  securing  the  second  reading, 
though  his  dislike  of  that  method  was  only  exceeded  by  that 
of  the  King.  First  the  possible  number  required  was  put  at 
21  ;  then  at  an  undefined  quantity  ;  and  lastly  50  or  60 
was  estimated  as  the  maximum.  The  King's  consent  was 
throughout  reluctant  and  qualified.  He  disliked  the  pre- 
cedent ;  was  afraid  of  permanently  altering  the  character 
of  the  House  of  Lords.  His  own  opinion  of  himself  was  that 
he  had  come  to  the  throne  "  with  his  judgment  happily 
unfettered  by  party  prejudice  "  ;  it  had  always  been  his 
desire  "  to  remove  difficulties  rather  than  to  raise  them  "  ; 
he  was  not  conscious  of  having  "  betrayed  any  disposition 
to  an  extravagant  display  of  dignity  and  splendour,  or  to 
the  exhibition  of  despotic  and  arbitrary  power."  (Correspond- 
ence, ii.  79.)  But  the  times  were  those  of  great  peril  when 
"  the  overthrow  of  all  legitimate  authority,  the  destruction  of 
ancient  institutions,  of  social  order,  and  of  every  gradation  and 
link  of  society  were  threatened  ;  when  a  revolutionary  and 
demoralising  spirit  was  making  frightful  strides  ;  when  a 
poisonous  press,  almost  unchecked,  guided,  excited,  and  at 
the  same  time  controlled  public  opinion."  Therefore  he 
insisted  on  Ministers,  after  Reform  should  have  passed, 
resisting  any  further  encroachments  tending  to  the  further 
reduction  of  the  authority  and  dignity  of  the  Crown. 
10 


146  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

In  the  King's  view  the  interests  of  the  monarchy  and  of 
the  country  ran  more  danger  from  the  growing  power  of  the 
Commons  than  from  any  exertion  of  the  Lords  to  maintain 
its  independence  in  a  discussion  of  a  great  constitutional 
question.     {Correspondence,  ii.  161,  January  28.) 

With  a  monarch  of  naturally  so  Tory  a  cast  of  mind  had 
Lord  Grey  to  work.  The  King  was  right  when  he  said  that 
he  did  not  consider  his  Minister's  situation  more  enviable 
than  his  own.  (ib.  ii.  189,  February  4,  1832.)  It  was  a 
pitiable  one  for  both  of  them.  And  Lord  Grey  told  the 
King  that,  could  he  have  foreseen  the  irreconcilable  opposi- 
tion of  the  Lords,  he  would  never  have  undertaken  the 
Government,  (ib.  ii.  163,  January  29.)  Yet  the  two 
worked  gallantly  together,  strange  and  unequal  mates  in 
a  common  task.  Their  correspondence  is  an  extraordinary 
exhibition  of  mutual  confidence  and  good  temper,  rarely 
interrupted  by  occasional  signs  of  irritability.  Grey  felt 
that  the  possible  rejection  of  the  Bill  on  the  second  reading 
would  be  for  himself  "  such  ruin  as  never  fell  upon  a  public 
man."  (ib.  ii.  232,  February  17.)  Yet  he  resisted  the 
pressure  of  his  party  to  insist  on  the  creation  of  peers,  and 
was  prepared  to  offer  his  immediate  resignation  with  no  other 
regret  than  for  his  separation  "  from  so  kind  and  indulgent 
a  master."  (ib.  ii.  213.)  Nor  can  one  doubt  the  King's 
assurance  that  his  earnest  desire  was  to  deal  fairly  and 
squarely  with  him  ;  that  he  felt  his  own  security  would  be 
endangered  by  any  departure  from  an  honest  and  straight- 
forward course,  and  that,  if  he  were  to  deceive  him,  he 
might  in  the  hour  of  need  look  in  vain  for  aid  from  others. 
(ib.  ii.  235,  February  18.) 

For  the  difficulty  was  that  such  deception  was  imputed 
to  the  King.  The  King's  hospitality  to  the  most  bitter 
opponents  of  the  Bill  was  used  to  spread  false  reports  of  his 
views  ;  "  feeling  that  they  were  equally  well  received,  en- 
couraged those  who  voted  in  opposition,"  with  a  result  very 
injurious  to  the  Government,  (ib.  ii.  167,  January  29,  1832.) 
In  making  this  remonstrance  Grey  offered  to  resign.  The 
Lords  were  encouraged  in  their  resistance  by  the  fact  that 
the  King's  objection  to  creating  peers  had  either  been  dis- 
covered or  guessed  at  by  those  who  approached  him  and  who 


The  Battle  of  Reform  1 47 

had  not  scrupled  to  propagate  the  most  unfounded  state- 
ments. Sir  H.  Taylor  replied  that  it  was  difficult  or  impossible 
for  the  King  always  to  conceal  the  feelings  which  he  had 
early  imbibed  and  which  events  had  not  tended  to  weaken, 
but  that  he  was  sure  he  had  never  said  a  word  that  could  be 
construed  into  a  want  of  confidence  in  hisHVIinisters,  or  justify 
a  doubt  of  their  security  ;  people  would  exaggerate  their 
impressions,  nor  did  he  see  how  it  could  be  avoided,  (ib. 
ii.  179.)  A  week  before  the  second  reading  Grey  writes  of 
the  adversaries  of  the  Bill  as  "  more  unblushing  than  ever 
in  the  confidence  with  which  they  circulated  statements  of 
the  King's  dislike  of  it  and  of  his  aversion  to  a  creation 
of  peers."  (ib.  ii.  341.)  And  that  the  second  reading  failed 
to  pass  by  a  majority  which  "  would  have  insured  the  passing 
of  the  Bill  without  much  difficulty,"  Grey  attributed  to 
"  the  unfortunate  effect  produced  by  the  misrepresentations 
which  were  circulated  respecting  the  language  held  by  the 
King."     {ib.  ii.  380,  April  21,  1832.) 

This  indirect  influence  of  the  King  against  the  Bill  counter- 
acted his  more  direct  influence  on  its  behalf.  But  the 
latter  was  never  insincere  or  inoperative.  In  vain  he  tried 
to  persuade  Lord  Hill,  Commander-in-Chief,  to  promise  his 
vote  ;  and  when  the  General  would  only  promise  abstention, 
the  King,  "  mortified  and  disappointed,"  clearly  contemplated 
Lord  Hill's  resignation,  which  from  personal  regard  and 
appreciation  of  the  General's  services  Grey  declined  to 
press,     (ib.  ii.  276.) 

"  Nothing,"  Lord  Albemarle  told  Creevey,  "  could  exceed 
the  King's  ecstasies  "  at  having  such  a  load  off  his  mind  as 
the  carrying  of  the  second  reading  in  the  Lords,  (ii.  244.) 
But  the  strain  had  been  too  much  for  the  King's  nerves  ; 
for  within  two  days  of  the  second  reading  the  King  wrote  a 
letter  to  Lord  Grey  expressive  not  only  of  a  want  of  confidence, 
but  even  of  suspicion  and  distrust.  It  was  on  foreign  policy. 
The  King  avowed  his  entire  mistrust  of  France  ;  deprecated 
the  adoption  of  too  liberal  a  system,  too  unreserved  a  leaning 
to  "  the  spirit  of  the  times,"  such  as  might  excite  the  suspicion 
of  the  great  Continental  monarchies  in  regard  to  Poland. 
He  thought  that  France  had  not  abandoned  her  desires  for 
conquest ;    believed  that  she  wished  to  recover  Belgium  and 


148  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

extend  again  her  boundary  to  the  Rhine.  He  desired  that  no 
instruction  should  be  given  to  his  ambassadors  abroad  without 
his  concurrence.  (Correspondence,  ii.  351-5,  April  16.)  Grey 
at  once  accepted  this  as  an  expression  of  want  of  confidence, 
and  offered  to  resign.  There  was  an  interview  at  which  the 
King  renewed  expressions  of  confidence,  but  there  was  an 
absence  of  the  former  "  cordial  feeling."  The  incident  shows 
the  extraordinary  difficulty  under  our  system  of  the  successful 
co-operation  in  government  of  men  of  such  fundamentally 
incompatible  opinions  and  characters  as  William  IV.  and 
Lord  Grey. 

The  crisis  came  on  May  7,  on  the  carrying  of  Lord  Lynd- 
hurst's  motion  against  the  Government  by  151  to  116  for 
postponing  the  clauses  which  disfranchised  the  rotten 
boroughs.  The  next  day  the  Cabinet  suggested  a  creation 
of  peers  as  preferable  to  the  Government's  resignation,  and 
Lord  Grey  and  Lord  Brougham  visited  the  King  with  this 
object  at  Windsor.  At  this  interview,  according  to  Creevey, 
the  King  failed  to  preserve  his  usual  civility,  showed  strong 
reluctance  to  the  proposal,  and  said  Lord  Grey  should  have 
his  answer  next  day.  (ii.  245.)  This  answer  on  May  9 
informed  the  Cabinet  that  the  King  had  come  to  "  the  painful 
resolution  of  accepting  their  resignation,"  and  Lord  Grey 
described  an  interview  that  he  had  with  him  as  "  very  dis- 
tressing "  ;  "  it  was  painful  to  see  His  Majesty  so  deeply 
affected."  "  Our  beloved  Billy,"  wrote  Creevey,  "  cuts  a 
damnable  figure  in  this  business."  The  defeat  of  the  Govern- 
ment encouraged  him  to  let  the  Duke  of  Cumberland  tell  his 
friends  that  he  had  no  intention  of  creating  peers,  (ii.  245.) 
A  Conservative  Ministry  had  thus  become  the  alternative. 
The  King's  own  account  of  his  action  at  this  crisis  was  that 
he  made  "  an  unsuccessful  attempt  to  change  the  Govern- 
ment, and  to  defeat  the  measure  for  which  they  had  con- 
tended," and  he  expressed  gratitude  to  Lord  Grey  for  not 
having,  after  his  recall,  taken  any  advantage  of  the  position 
in  which  this  abortive  attempt  to  wreck  Reform  had  placed 
him  towards  Lord  Grey  and  his  party.  (Stockmar's  Memoirs, 
i.  321.) 

Yet  at  the  levee  of  May  10  the  King  three  times  implored 
Lord  Brougham  not  to  leave  him,  whilst  he  assured  Lord 


The  Battle  of  Reform  1 49 

Grey  that  George  II.  had  not  felt  more  bitterly  at  parting 
with  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  or  George  III.  at  parting  with  Lord 
North,  than  he  felt  at  parting  with  his  departing  Minister.  And 
on  leaving  town  to  return  to  Windsor  he  "  was  rather  roughly 
treated  by  the  people  "  at  several  places.     (Creevey,  ii.  246.) 

The  ship  of  State  was  well-nigh  on  the  rocks  in  this  month 
of  May.  Creevey  thought  that  the  Crown  itself  was  really 
in  some  danger,  whilst  the  fate  of  the  Reform  Bill  hung  in  the 
balance,  (ii.  247.)  If  the  Opposition  had  to  be  called  on 
to  undertake  a  Reform  Bill,  it  would  have  to  be  one  no  less 
efficient  than  the  Whig  Bill.  Peel  declined  to  attempt  such 
a  task,  but  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  whose  opposition  to 
Reform  of  any  sort  had  been  most  uncompromising  from  the 
start,  was  at  first  disposed  to  try.  The  King's  joy  at  the 
prospect  of  deliverance  from  the  Whigs  is  said  to  have  been 
unbounded.  He  told  the  Duke  he  had  only  consented  to  the 
creation  of  peers  after  every  kind  of  persecution.  He  told 
Lord  Verulam  that  he  considered  such  creation  contrary  to 
his  Coronation  oath.  Greville's  comment  seems  too  bitter, 
but  it  probably  represents  a  large  section  of  contemporary 
opinion  :  "  His  ignorance,  weakness,  and  levity  put  him  in  a 
miserable  plight,  and  prove  him  to  be  one  of  the  silliest  old 
gentlemen  in  his  dominions,  but  I  believe  he  is  mad."  He 
describes  him  as  having  on  May  16,  after  a  dinner  to  the 
Jockey  Club,  made  so  many  speeches  "  so  ridiculous  and 
nonsensical  .  .  .  such  a  mass  of  confusion,  trash,  and  im- 
becility as  made  one  laugh  and  blush  at  the  same  time." 
(ii.  308.) 

Greville  describes  him  as  "  at  his  wits'  end  "  ;  which  is 
likely  enough,  seeing  that  the  Duke  of  Wellington  and  Lord 
Lyndhurst  soon  undeceived  him  as  to  the  possibility  of  their 
forming  a  Government.  But  at  the  same  time  they  assured 
him  that  "  as  individual  peers  they  would  not  attend  the 
further  discussion  of  the  Reform  Bill  "  ;  and  the  King 
received  similar  assurances  from  other  peers.  (Correspond- 
ence, ii.  428,  May  18,  1832,  The  King  to  Lord  Mansfield.) 

On  May  16  Lord  Grey,  therefore,  had  to  be  recalled, 
subject  to  a  declaration  to  be  made  in  the  Lords  of  the  in- 
tention of  the  Duke  and  other  peers  to  drop  further  opposition. 
(ib.  ii.  420,  May  17.)     But  that  same  day  not  only  was  no 


150  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

such  declaration  made,  but  the  Duke  and  Lord  Lyndhurst 
both  made  speeches  of  "  extreme  violence,"  and  other  peers 
speeches  of  "  extreme  virulence  "  ;  thus  violating  the  con- 
dition which  the  King  had  regarded  as  an  alternative  to  the 
creation  of  peers  he  was  so  anxious  to  avoid.  The  King  was 
told  that  several  peers  had  refrained  from  making  their 
expected  declaration  in  consequence  of  an  unconciliatory 
speech  from  Lord  Grey.  But  in  any  case  the  Cabinet  was 
forced  back  to  its  demand  for  a  creation  of  peers  as  a  condition 
of  continuing  in  office  ;  and  to  this  the  King  consented. 
{Correspondence,  ii.  435,  May  18.)  Yet  it  never  came  to  such 
creation.  The  royal  influence,  exercised  chiefly  through  his 
tactful  secretary,  procured  at  last  sufficient  abstentions  to 
nullify  further  opposition.  It  was  the  lesser  of  two  evils  to 
submit  to  Reform  without  the  new  peers  than  to  Reform  with 
them  as  an  added  evil  to  it.  And  thus  at  length  on  June  4 
this  much-debated  measure  successfully  passed  its  third 
reading  ;  a  lasting  monument  to  the  honour  of  Lord  Grey 
and  his  Cabinet,  and  in  no  small  degree  to  the  King,  whose 
personal  influence  it  was  that  in  the  end  bore  down  opposition. 
He  had  carried  his  point  of  forcing  the  measure  through 
the  Legislature  without  resort  to  a  creation  of  peers. 


CHAPTER    II 

William  the  Conquered 

The  passing  of  the  Reform  Bill  cleared  the  political  atmo- 
sphere for  a  time,  but  the  fundamental  antagonism  between 
the  King  and  his  Ministers  steadily  increased.  Although 
on  many  subjects  he  held  Liberal  opinions,  as  on  the  policy 
of  State  payment  to  the  Irish  Catholic  clergy,  his  dread  of 
democracy  and  fear  of  change  got  the  better  of  him  as  time 
went  on.  When  Lord  Normanby  went  to  take  leave  of  him 
before  going  as  Governor  to  Jamaica,  the  King  harangued 
him  in  favour  of  the  slave  trade,  "  of  which  he  had  always 
been  a  great  admirer  ;  a  sentiment  for  which  his  subjects 
would  have  torn  him  to  pieces  if  they  had  heard,"  says 
Greville.  (ii.  313,  314.)  One  of  the  great  evils  of  the  recent 
convulsion  was,  in  Greville's  eyes,  that  "  the  King's  imbecility 
had  been  exposed  to  the  world,  and  in  his  person  the  regal 
authority  had  fallen  into  contempt."  (ib.  ii.  314.)  "Never 
was  a  King  less  respected."  (ib.  iii.  28.)  Greville  went  so  far 
in  disrespect  as  to  speak  of  him  as  "  the  very  silly  old  gentle- 
man who  wears  the  Crown."     (ib.  iii.  57.) 

It  was  unfortunate  for  the  country  that  its  destiny  was 
thus  at  the  mercy  of  a  King  whose  capacity  to  fill  his  high 
position  with  credit  was  less  than  equal  to  his  wish  to  do  so. 
The  worry  of  it  was  almost  too  much  for  him.  On  March  4, 
1833,  Sir  Thomas  Hardy  told  Greville's  brother  that  he 
thought  the  King  would  go  mad ;  he  was  so  excitable, 
loathing  his  Ministers,  particularly  Graham,  and  dying  to  go 
to  war.  (ib.  ii.  372.)  But,  however  he  may  have  felt  about 
war  at  that  time,  three  years  later  on  November  7,  1836,  in 
a  letter  to  Lord  Melbourne,  he  advocated  strict  neutrality 
in  the  war  he  thought  approaching  between  the  rival 
principles  of  absolute  and  of  republican  government. 
(Melbourne  Papers,  354.)     Yet  on  July  18  of  the  same  year 


152  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Melbourne  wrote  as  follows  to  his  brother  :  "  We  all  wish 
for  peace,  but  Metternich  should  remember  that,  whatever 
should  be  the  disposition  of  other  kings,  kings  of  England 
like  wars,  which  they  wage  in  comparative  security,  and 
which  offer  to  them  nothing  but  pleasurable  excitement, 
and  commands  and  promotions  to  give  or  to  make." 
(Melbourne  Papers,  348.) 

Despite  the  King,  however,  the  first  Reformed  Parliament 
of  1833  passed  the  Abolition  of  Slavery  in  our  colonies  with 
flying  colours  ;  that  is,  without  even  opposition  from  the 
House  of  Lords,  and  without  serious  complaint  of  the  twenty 
million  pounds  which  the  compensation  of  the  planters  cost 
the  tax-payer. 

But  the  questions  of  Church  Reform  touched  the  King 
more  closely.  The  payment  by  the  Irish  farmer  of  tithes  for 
the  support  of  the  Protestant  Church  in  Ireland  had  long 
been  a  scandal,  and  one  of  the  causes  of  the  everlasting  dis- 
turbance of  the  country.  In  December  1831  a  mob  of  some 
2000  men,  armed  with  pitchforks  and  stones,  attacked  a 
tithe-collecting  force  in  Kilkenny,  the  result  of  which  was 
that  the  chief  constable  and  sixteen  police  were  killed  and 
wounded.  (Grey  and  William  IV.,  ii.  39.)  Even  the  King, 
like  his  brothers  George  IV.  and  the  Duke  of  York  before 
him,  came  to  regard  a  State  provision  for  the  Catholic  Irish 
clergy  as  the  only  chance  of  peace  in  Ireland,  (ib.  ii.  55,  56.) 
Legislation  was  clearly  necessary  ;  yet  when  on  February  18, 
1832,  the  Report  of  the  Tithe  Commissioners  had  been 
introduced  to  the  House  of  Lords,  Lord  Grey  declared  that 
it  had  "  produced  such  an  ebullition  of  party  violence  and 
animosity  "  as  he  had  never  witnessed,  (ib.  ii.  236.)  A 
Tithe  Bill  passed  its  third  reading  in  the  Commons  on  August 
5,  1834,  but  it  was  speedily  disposed  of  on  its  second  reading 
on  August  11  by  the  Lords,  who  had  discovered  a  very  simple 
way  of  dishing  the  Reform  Act. 

It  was  this  Irish  Church  legislation  that  finally  estranged 
the  King  from  the  Liberal  party.  As  the  proposal  to  appro- 
priate the  surplus  funds  of  the  Irish  Church  to  secular  pur- 
poses caused  the  withdrawal  of  four  prominent  Ministers 
from  the  Cabinet,  one  can  imagine  the  feelings  of  the  King. 
Lord  Grey  himself  was  on  the  point  of  resigning  in  May  1834, 


William  the  Conquered  153 

and  was  only  prevented  by  Lord  Ebrington's  address  of 
confidence  and  remonstrance.  The  King  chose  this  moment 
to  make  a  speech,  with  the  tears  running  down  his  cheeks, 
in  answer  to  an  address  presented  to  him  at  the  \ev6e  of 
May  28  by  the  Irish  prelates.  He  declared  his  firm  attach- 
ment to  the  Church  and  his  determination  to  maintain  it. 
It  was  in  short  an  open  declaration  of  war  against  the  policy 
of  Lord  Grey's  Ministry,  and  no  doubt  acted  largely  as  among 
the  motives  that  finally  led  to  his  personal  resignation  on 
July  7,  1834. 

Writing  of  this  period,  Greville  says  that  it  is  "  difficult 
to  describe  the  state  of  agitation  into  which  the  minds  of 
people  of  all  classes  are  thrown  ...  of  the  feeling  of  in- 
security, of  doubt,  of  apprehension  which  pervades  all 
classes."  (iii.  19,  July  25,  1833.)  On  July  15,  1834,  Lord 
Melbourne  succeeded  Lord  Grey  as  Prime  Minister,  and  in 
vain  the  King  wished  Grey  to  return.  Between  the  King 
pulling  in  one  direction  and  the  new  democracy  as  powerfully 
in  the  other,  the  greatest  statesman  of  the  nineteenth  century 
did  wisely  to  withdraw.  The  King  then  fell  back  on  his 
father's  idea  of  a  Government  on  a  wide  bottom,  and  with 
this  object  insisted  on  Lord  Melbourne's  writing  to  the 
Duke  of  Wellington,  Peel,  and  Lord  Stanley  to  join  his 
Ministry  :  an  idea  which  was  promptly  scouted  as  impossible. 
(ib.  iii.  112,  July  17.)  The  King's  own  admission  was  that 
by  such  a  union  of  parties  he  hoped  that  a  Conservative 
object  might  be  effected,  and  that  his  failure  to  effect  this 
union  "  disappointed  hopes  which  he  had  long  cherished." 
(Stockmar's  Memoirs,  i.  325.)  When  the  scheme  failed,  and 
he  was  forced  to  accept  Lord  Melbourne  in  July  1834,  he 
clearly  stated  his  "  predilection  for  Conservative  measures, 
and  for  those  who  advocated  them,"  and  his  wish  to  guard 
himself  against  further  encroachments  of  individuals  or 
principles  he  mistrusted,  (ib.  i.  326.)  In  short  the  King 
was  in  the  uncomfortable  position  of  having  become  an 
out-and-out  Tory  yoked  unwillingly  to  a  Liberal  Govern- 
ment. And  that  has  frequently  been  the  uncomfortable 
position  of  our  Constitutional  Monarchs. 

Equally   vain   with   his   attempt   to   obtain   a   Coalition 
Ministry,  to  temper   the    Radical   tendencies  of    the  Whig 


154  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Cabinet,  was  the  King's  attempt  to  obtain  from  Lord  Mel- 
bourne a  promise  of  the  exclusion  from  office  of  individuals 
he  disliked,  and  a  pledge  to  leave  untouched  the  English  or 
the  Irish  Church.  Lord  Melbourne  resolutely  refused  to 
accept  office  on  such  conditions.     (Melbourne  Papers,  204-8.) 

The  crisis  came  in  November  1834,  when  the  tenth  Lord 
Spencer  died,  thereby  necessitating  the  removal  of  Lord 
Althorp  to  the  House  of  Lords  and  the  choice  of  a  new  leader 
in  the  House  of  Commons.  So  on  the  13th  Lord  Melbourne 
went  to  Brighton  to  consult  the  King  as  to  whether  fresh 
arrangements  should  be  suggested  or  whether  the  King 
would  prefer  the  advice  of  other  persons.  He  expressed 
readiness  to  submit  a  new  arrangement,  and  confidence 
in  the  continuance  of  the  support  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
(Palmerston  in  Stockmar's  Memoirs,  i.  308.)  But  the  King 
could  not  stand  the  idea  of  Lord  John  Russell's  succession 
to  Lord  Althorp  as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  and  leader 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  Lord  John  was  as  obnoxious  to 
the  King  as  Fox  had  been  to  his  father.  He  hated  his 
Liberal  opinions  on  Church  Reform,  and  thought  him  a 
"  dangerous  little  Radical."  (Greville,  iii.  151.)  Also  he 
declared  that  Brougham  could  not  continue  as  Chancellor  ; 
he  expressed  dissatisfaction  with  the  Irish  Church  Bill, 
and  with  every  one  who  had  had  a  hand  in  framing  it. 
(Buckingham's  William  IV.,  ii.  139,  140.)  The  King  asked 
Lord  Melbourne  about  the  measures  in  contemplation  for 
the  Irish  Church  and  Municipal  Reform ;  and  the  reply 
being  "  of  a  nature  that  alarmed  him,  he  instantly  resolved 
to  get  rid  of  such  dangerous  Ministers."  So  wrote  the  Duke 
of  Cumberland  to  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  on  December 
5,  1834.     (ib.  ii.  147.) 

Whether  the  King's  resolution  to  dismiss  the  Ministry 
was  as  instantaneous  as  his  brother  thought  admits  of 
doubt  ;  for  the  contingency  of  Lord  Spencer's  death  must 
have  been  foreseen ;  Lord  Grey  had  told  him  that  the 
consequence  would  justify  the  break-up  of  the  Melbourne 
Ministry  (Stockmar,  i.  333),  and  Lord  Palmerston  was  of 
opinion  that  the  whole  episode  was  "  a  preconcerted 
measure.  .  .  .  merely  to  gratify  the  ambition  of  the  Duke 
of  Wellington,  and  the  prejudices  or  sordid  feelings  of  his 


William  the  Conquered  155 

followers."  (ib.  i.  309,  310.)  Anyhow,  the  Whigs  were 
shown  to  the  door,  "  regularly  kicked  out,"  as  Greville  says 
(iii.  148)  ;  "  unceremoniously  kicked  out  ...  in  the  pleni- 
tude of  their  fancied  strength  and  utterly  unconscious  of 
danger,  they  were  dismissed  in  the  most  positive,  summary, 
and  peremptory  manner."     (ib.  iii.  158.) 

It  is  of  interest  to  notice  some  of  the  points  brought  out 
by  the  King  himself  in  the  long  statement  of  the  political 
history  of  his  reign  which  he  presented  to  Sir  Robert  Peel 
on  the  completion  of  the  new  Ministry  in  January  1835. 
The  King  had  expected  Lord  Melbourne's  resignation  on 
the  death  of  Lord  Spencer  as  a  matter  of  course,  and 
assumed  that  the  object  of  the  Minister's  visit  to  Brighton 
was  to  offer  his  resignation,  which  the  King  had  made  up 
his  mind  to  accept.  When  the  only  arrangement  suggested 
by  Lord  Melbourne  was  the  leadership  of  Lord  John  Russell, 
he  objected  strongly  :  Lord  John  had  neither  the  abilities 
nor  the  influence  requisite,  and  "  would  make  a  wretched 
figure  when  opposed  by  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  Mr.  Stanley." 
(ib.  i.  329.)  Further  objections  to  him  were  that  he 
was  pledged  to  encroachments  on  the  Irish  Church,  which 
the  King  was  determined  to  resist.  Also  the  "  extra- 
vagant conduct  of  Lord  Brougham  "  as  Chancellor  had  shaken 
his  confidence  in  the  Ministry.  In  vain  Lord  Melbourne 
tried  to  reassure  him,  by  declaring  himself  uncommitted  on 
Church  Reform  measures,  and  by  reminding  the  King  of  his 
freedom  of  assent  to  such  measures.  The  King  was  resolved 
to  be  free  of  him,  as  any  Government  of  his  must  be  sup- 
ported by  those  whose  Church  views  were  at  variance  with 
the  King's,  and  therefore  bound  to  lead  to  serious  differences 
between  himself  and  them  when  Parliament  met. 

In  the  King's  version  of  the  affair  there  is  no  indication 
of  Lord  Melbourne's  not  having  done  all  he  could  to  re- 
concile the  King  to  his  continuance  in  office  ;  and  as  to 
prearrangement  with  the  Tory  party,  the  King  insists  that 
when  he  came  to  his  final  resolution  on  November  14,  there 
had  been  no  communication  of  any  sort  from  which  he  could 
learn  their  sentiments,  or  their  means  of  relieving  him  from 
the  difficulty  in  which  he  had  felt  it  his  duty  to  place  himself  ; 
though  he  entertained  "  sanguine  expectations,  amounting 


156  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

almost  to  conviction,"  that  he  could  count  on  their  support. 
{Stockmar,  i.  338.) 

It  was  a  mild  coup  d'etat,  and  its  mildness  was  due  to 
the  tact  shown  both  by  the  King  and  Lord  Melbourne  in 
their  parting  correspondence.  (Melbourne  Papers,  219-27.) 
Though  the  conversation  between  them  on  November  14 
was  described  by  the  King  as  "  very  painful,"  he  declared  he 
could  never  forget  the  Minister's  words,  and  Lord  Melbourne 
declared  an  equal  inability  to  forget  His  Majesty's  words 
or  manner  on  that  occasion.  He  asserted  with  obvious 
sincerity  the  "  strongest  personal  attachment  "  to  the  King, 
who,  in  Melbourne's  opinion,  "  made  his  election  conscienti- 
ously and  uninfluenced  by  others,"  nor  would  Lord  Melbourne 
"  positively  venture  to  pronounce  that  he  was  wrong." 
(ib.  227.) 

The  constitutionality  of  the  King's  action  was  much 
discussed  at  the  time,  and  has  been  since.  But,  given  the 
King's  position  and  opinions,  it  is  difficult  to  condemn  his 
action.  His  own  defence,  based  on  differences  in  the 
Ministry  itself,  had  much  reason  in  it.  The  episode  rather 
reflects  on  the  political  system  itself,  which  places  so  much 
power  for  obstruction  in  the  hands  of  a  monarch,  and 
subjects  to  his  caprice  the  entire  course  of  legislation.  There 
was  nothing  in  William's  character  to  entitle  him  to  this 
power.  Stockmar  complains  of  the  weakness  of  his  char- 
acter, of  his  lack  of  resolution,  of  his  susceptibility  to  his 
personal  environment,  of  his  erroneous  belief  in  his  own 
great  political  gifts  (i.  312,  313)  ;  and  that  pure  chance  should 
place  such  a  man  on  the  throne  at  a  time  of  rapid  political 
development  was,  as  it  remains,  a  palpable  imperfection  in 
the  practice  of  Constitutional  Monarchy. 

The  King  doubtless  looked  forward  to  an  easier  time 
with  Peel  and  Wellington  at  the  head  of  the  Commons  and 
Lords  respectively.  But  the  Duke  had  come  to  regard  the 
House  of  Commons  as  an  impossible  institution.  On 
January  31,  1834,  he  wrote  to  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  : 
"  The  Government  of  the  country,  the  protection  of  the 
lives,  privileges,  and  properties  of  its  subjects  .  .  .  are 
impracticable  as  long  as  such  a  deliberative  Assembly  exists 
as  the  House  of  Commons,  with  all  the  powers  and  privileges 


IVilliam  tJie  Conquered  157 

which  it  has  amassed  in  the  course  of  the  last  two  hundred 
years."  (Buckingham's  William  IV.,  ii.  77.)  And  it  is 
curious  to  find  the  Duke  again  sitting  in  the  Chamber  which 
he  had  declared  to  Lord  Buckingham  that  he  would  never 
enter  again  if  the  Reform  Bill  became  law.     (ib.  i.  261.) 

The  new  Ministry  had  to  please  also  an  almost  greater 
King  than  the  occupant  of  the  throne  ;  that  was  Barnes, 
the  editor  of  The  Times.  The  only  conditions  on  which 
Barnes  would  prop  them  up  were  that  there  should  be  no 
mutilation  of  the  Reform  Act  and  no  change  in  foreign 
policy.  The  subjection  of  these  great  Ministers  to  the 
editor,  as  described  by  Greville,  verged  almost  on  the 
abject,     (iii.  159-61.) 

The  Dissolution  on  December  30,  1834,  and  the  sub- 
sequent General  Election  went  some  way  to  justify  the  King's 
hopes  that  a  Tory  reaction  had  come  over  the  country  ;  for 
the  Reform  party  lost  one  hundred  seats  in  the  boroughs 
and  counties,  and  the  great  disparity  between  the  two 
parties  was  reduced  to  332  on  the  Liberal  against  319  on 
the  Conservative  side.  Indications  of  coming  trouble  were 
given  by  the  election  on  February  20,  1835,  of  Abercromby 
to  the  Speakership  by  316  to  306  ;  and  the  inevitable  anta- 
gonism between  the  Lords  and  Commons,  consequent  on  the 
Reform  Act,  caused  just  anticipations  of  some  violent 
collision  between  them.  Hobhouse  thought  that  such  a 
collision  might  very  likely  lead  to  a  Republic.  (Greville, 
iii.  201.) 

Nor  were  the  relations  between  the  Duke  and  the  King 
as  pleasant  as  might  have  been  expected.  The  Duke  is  said 
to  have  been  "  bored  to  death  with  the  King,  who  thought 
it  necessary  to  be  giving  advice  and  opinions  about  different 
matters  always  to  the  last  degree  ridiculous  and  absurd." 
The  Duke  was  obliged  to  write  him  long  answers  "  respect- 
fully telling  him  what  an  old  fool  he  was."  (ib.  iii.  208.) 
"  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  anything  more  irksome  for  a 
Government  beset  with  difficulties  like  this  than  to  have  to 
discuss  the  various  details  of  their  measures  with  a  silly, 
bustling  old  fellow,  who  can  by  no  possibility  comprehend 
the  scope  and  meaning  of  anything."  (ib.  iii.  209.)  This 
may  seem  a  harsh  judgment,  but  in  examining  the  working  of 


158  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

monarchy  as  an  institution  the  impression  of  an  observer  like 
Greville  cannot  be  overlooked. 

The  end  was  bound  to  come  speedily,  and  it  did  so  on 
April  3,  1835,  when  the  Government  was  defeated  by  322 
to  289  on  Lord  John  Russell's  resolution  on  the  surplus 
revenues  of  the  Irish  Church.  On  the  8th  Peel  announced 
his  resignation,  and  the  unfortunate  King  had  again  to  fall 
back  on  a  Whig  Ministry  under  Lord  Melbourne,  which  was 
to  last  for  the  remainder  of  his  life. 

The  King  put  as  good  a  face  on  the  matter  as  he  could, 
but  Greville  assures  us  that  he  was  "  very  miserable."  The 
Duchess  of  Gloucester  described  him  as  being  "  in  the  most 
pitiable  state  of  distress,  constantly  in  tears,  and  saying 
that  he  felt  his  crown  tottering  on  his  head."  (Greville,  iii. 
257,  April  11,  1835.) 

On  April  3,  1835,  Peel  told  Greville  that  the  King  was  in 
a  miserable  state  at  the  prospect  before  him,  and  all  the  more 
so  for  feeling  how  much  there  was  in  it  which  fell  personally 
upon  himself,  (iii.  248.)  Monarchy  in  England  never 
reached  a  lower  ebb,  nor  the  monarch  a  more  miserable 
position  than  when  William  IV.,  having  dismissed  the  Whigs 
in  November  1834,  was  obliged  to  recall  them  in  April  1835. 

He  again  made  a  vain  attempt  to  get  a  Coalition  Ministry, 
to  which  Lord  Melbourne  and  Lord  Lansdowne  at  once 
refused  to  be  parties.  Ultimately  it  devolved  on  Lord 
Melbourne  alone  to  form  a  Ministry,  but  he  laid  down  his 
terms  to  the  King  with  great  firmness.  He  insisted,  as  a 
proof  of  the  Crown's  confidence,  that  no  future  members  of  the 
Royal  Household,  whose  opinions  were  hostile  to  the  Govern- 
ment, should  be  selected  from  either  House  of  Parliament. 
Existing  members  might  remain  subject  to  a  similar  condition. 
He  insisted  no  less  on  the  creation  of  seven  or  eight  peers, 
as  some  counterbalance  to  the  six  peerages  created  by  Sir 
Robert  Peel  in  his  few  months  of  office.  (Melbourne  Papers, 
269-72,  April  13,  15,  1835.) 

Nor  would  Lord  Melbourne  give  way  to  the  King's  wish 
to  bar  legislation  affecting  the  Irish  Church.  The  appropria- 
tion of  the  surplus  revenues  of  the  Church  to  popular  educa- 
tion, as  it  had  been  the  principle  which  had  wrecked  Peel's 
Ministry,  so  it  must  be  the  main  principle  of  the  new  one. 


William  the  Conquered  159 

As  little  would  he  give  way  to  the  King's  desire  for  the 
exclusion  from  office  of  individuals  obnoxious  to  the  King  ; 
any  one  qualified  by  law  to  serve  the  King  the  Minister  must 
have  power  to  recommend,  (ib.  273-6,  April  15,  1835.) 
And,  when  the  King  still  raised  the  Irish  Church  question, 
he  insisted  on  its  being  a  preliminary  condition  to  his  accept- 
ance of  office  that  the  King  should  give  both  his  preliminary 
consent,  before  the  Bill  was  introduced,  and  his  subsequent 
consent  after  it  had  passed  through  Parliament,  and  promise 
his  support  to  its  progress  through  Parliament,  (ib.  277.) 
The  Minister  prevailed,  and  the  King  was  conquered. 

But  it  was  a  sort  of  drawn  battle,  owing  to  the  co-opera- 
tion between  the  King  and  the  Lords  in  the  frustration  of 
Whig  reforms.  He  objected  strongly  to  the  Municipal 
Corporation  Bill  ;  a  measure  which  only  passed  on  September 
7,  1835,  after  much  friction  and  with  much  of  what  Lord 
Londonderry  called  "  doctoring  "  by  the  Lords. 

A  similar  Bill  for  Ireland  was  less  happy  in  its  fate.  The 
King  had  to  be  pacified  by  Lord  Melbourne  for  its  having 
been  introduced  without  his  previous  sanction.  But,  as  106 
of  its  original  140  clauses  were  rejected  by  the  Lords,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  failure  to  effect  a  compromise  ended  in  its 
withdrawal,     (ib.  307-11.) 

On  June  16,  1835,  Lord  Melbourne  "  humbly  "  submitted 
to  the  King  the  heads  of  the  Irish  Tithe  Bill.  He  regretted 
both  the  time  and  manner  of  its  introduction,  but  pleaded 
necessity  and  the  pledge  involved  in  the  resolution  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  The  King  admitted  the  justice  of  the 
plea,  and,  with  a  hint  at  his  veto,  resigned  himself  to  its 
introduction.  The  Lords,  however,  by  rejecting  the  Ap- 
propriation clauses,  saved  the  King  from  a  resort  to  his  veto. 
(ib.  208,  284-6.)  And  so  it  happened  again  in  1836.  (ib. 
306.)  Throughout  the  period  of  the  Whig  Ministry,  the 
Lords,  as  Greville  puts  it,  were  busy  "  bowling  down  Bills 
like  ninepins  "  (iii.  368),  for  they  knew  they  had  the  King 
at  their  back. 

Yet  it  was  a  wretched  time  for  the  King.  One  of  his  ten 
children,  Adolphus  Fitzclarence,  told  Greville  that  his  father 
abhorred  all  his  Ministers,  but  hated  Lord  John  Russell  most 
of  all ;  he  was  "  in  dreadfully  low  spirits,  and  could  not  rally 


160  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

at  all  "  ;  the  only  thing  that  gave  him  a  gleam  of  pleasure 
being  Lord  John's  defeat  in  his  Devonshire  election.  When 
Adolphus  had  suggested  to  the  King  that  he  should  give 
a  dinner  for  the  Ascot  races,  the  King  declared  it  impossible  : 
"  I  cannot  give  any  dinners  without  inviting  the  Ministers, 
and  I  would  rather  see  the  Devil  than  any  one  of  them  in 
my  house "  (Greville,  iii.  271,  June  19,  1835) :  this  being 
almost  identical  with  the  feeling  that  George  III.  once 
expressed  about  George  Grenville. 

Recriminations  were  frequent.  On  June  28,  1835,  the 
King  wrote  to  Melbourne  to  complain  of  Lord  Palmerston 
for  having  sounded  the  Czar  before  himself  about  Lord 
Durham's  mission  to  St.  Petersburg  ;  it  was  treating  him 
as  a  mere  cipher  to  assume  that  he  would  consent  as  a  matter 
of  course.  Lord  Melbourne  replied  that  in  sending  the 
Royal  letter  to  Palmerston  he  did  not  concur  in  the  censure 
of  a  Minister,  with  whom  he  entirely  agreed.  (Melbourne 
Papers,  333,  334.) 

The  King  had  an  especial  aversion  for  Lord  Glenelg, 
the  Colonial  Secretary.  On  July  1,  1835,  the  King  made  a 
speech  in  the  Privy  Council  to  Sir  C.  Grey,  one  of  three 
Commissioners  about  to  be  sent  to  Canada,  in  which  he  re- 
flected severely  on  Lord  Glenelg,  though  without  mentioning 
him  by  name.  The  Cabinet  drew  up  a  spirited  remonstrance 
against  the  King's  taking  such  an  occasion  for  dissociating 
his  opinions  from  those  of  his  Ministers  (ib.  334-6),  and, 
according  to  Greville.  Lord  Melbourne  told  the  King  frankly 
that  it  was  "  impossible  to  carry  on  the  Government,  if  he 
did  such  things."     (iii.  279,  283.) 

A  few  days  after  his  outburst  to  Sir  C.  Grey,  the  King 
said  to  Lord  Gosford,  about  to  go  to  Canada  as  Governor, 
"  Mind  what  you  are  about  in  Canada.  By  God,  I  will  never 
consent  to  alienate  the  Crown  lands  nor  to  make  the  Council 
elective.  Mind  me,  my  Lord,  the  Cabinet  is  not  my  Cabinet ; 
they  had  better  take  care,  or,  by  God,  I  will  have  them 
impeached."  ("  Hobhouse's  Recollections  "  in  Edinburgh 
Review,  vol.  133.) 

The  year  following,  1836,  it  was  a  question  of  further 
authorising  the  Commissioners  to  advise  changes  in  the 
government  of  Canada.      But  the  King  was   dead  against 


William  the  Conqiiered  161 

an  elective  Council.  On  June  7,  he  acquainted  Lord  Mel- 
bourne with  his  "  determination  and  fixed  resolution  "  never 
to  consent  to  any  such  thing  ;  no  colony  should  be  allowed 
"  the  most  distant  idea  of  the  King's  ever  permitting  "  his 
confidential  servants  to  entertain  such  an  invasion  of  his 
prerogative.  His  objection,  he  said,  to  the  adoption  of 
the  elective  principle  in  the  colonics  was  not  fanciful,  but 
founded  on  conviction,  nor  could  there  be  any  modification 
or  hope  of  any  concession.  (Melbourne  Papers,  349,  350.) 
It  required  several  refusals  before  the  King  could  be  got 
to  give  way  on  the  point. 

It  was  in  fact  war  to  the  knife  between  the  King  and 
his  Ministers.  They  expressed  themselves  as  resolved  to 
go  through  with  their  task  of  government  whatever  the  King 
might  say  or  do  ;  they  no  longer  looked  upon  themselves  as 
his  Ministers,  but  the  nation's.  Lord  Tavistock  described 
them  as  "  intolerably  disgusted  at  his  behaviour  to  them 
and  to  his  studied  incivility  to  everybody  connected  with 
them  "  :  as  when  at  the  Drawing-room  he  treated  the  Speaker 
Abercromby  with  "  shocking  rudeness,"  studiously  over- 
looking him,  and  showing  marked  graciousness  to  Manners 
Sutton,  whose  defeat  for  the  Speakership  by  360  to  306  had 
given  the  first  blow  to  the  short-lived  Peel  Ministry,  which 
ended  on  April  8,  1835.  Seymour,  Serjeant-at-Arms,  said 
he  had  never  seen  a  Speaker  so  used  in  the  five-and-twenty 
years  he  had  been  there,  and  that  it  was  most  painful. 
(Greville,  iii.  285,  286.) 

"  A  very  melancholy  and  mischievous  state  of  affairs," 
commented  Greville,  and  one  that  did  "  more  to  degrade 
the  Monarchy  than  anything  that  had  ever  occurred — to 
exhibit  the  King  publicly  to  the  world  as  a  cypher,  and 
something  less  than  a  cypher,  as  an  unsuccessful  competitor 
in  a  public  squabble,  was  to  take  from  the  Crown  all  the 
dignity  with  which  it  was  invested."  He  blamed  impartially 
the  King  for  having  got  himself  into  such  a  sea  of  trouble, 
and  his  Ministers  for  the  unrelenting  nature  of  their  revenge. 
The  King's  behaviour  made  matters  worse.  "  When  he 
found  himself  compelled  to  take  these  people  back,  and  to 
surrender  himself  a  prisoner  into  their  hands,  he  should 
have  swallowed  the  bitter  pill  and  digested  it,  and  not  kept 
ii 


1 62  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

rolling  it  in  his  mouth  and  making  wry  faces.  .  .  .  Had 
he  treated  them  with  that  sort  of  courtesy  which  one  gentle- 
man may  and  ought  to  show  to  all  those  with  whom  he  is 
unavoidably  brought  into  contact,  and  which  implies  nothing 
as  to  feeling  and  inclination,  he  would  have  received  from 
them  that  respect  and  attention  which  it  would  have  been 
equally  their  interest  and  their  desire  to  show."  But  "the 
intensity  of  his  hatred  of  his  Ministers  "  kept  him  in  "  his 
present  unwise,  irksome,  and  degrading  posture."  (ib. 
hi.  284,  285.) 

Like  his  father  and  brother  before  him,  the  King  came 
down  solidly  on  the  Tory  side  of  the  hedge.  Greville  calls 
him  "  a  true  King  of  the  Tories  "  ;  in  1836  "  waiting  with 
the  greatest  impatience  for  the  moment  when  his  Ministers 
must  resign."  (ib.  iii.  365.)  He  admitted  none  but  Tories 
to  his  society  ;  went  in  company  with  none  but  Tories  ; 
at  Windsor  had  no  guests  but  Tories.  On  his  birthday, 
or  the  Queen's,  no  Whig  Minister  or  any  one  connected 
with  the  Government  was  invited.  His  favourite  guests 
were  Tories  specially  distinguished  for  their  violence  and 
extreme  opinions.  Nothing  was  more  undisguised  than  the 
King's  aversion  to  his  Ministers  ;  he  seemed  resolved  "  to 
intimate  that  his  compulsory  reception  of  them  should  not 
extend  to  his  society,  and  that  though  he  could  not  help 
seeing  them  at  St.  James's,  the  gates  of  Windsor  were  shut 
against  them."  All  this  naturally  irritated  the  Melbourne 
Ministers,  but  it  had  the  effect  of  rendering  them  indifferent 
to  his  favour,  and  of  teaching  them  to  "  consider  themselves 
as  the  Ministers  of  the  House  of  Commons  and  not  of  the 
Crown  "  (ib.  iii.  293,  371)  :  a  needful  lesson  in  the  political 
education  of  the  country.  But  what  a  commentary  on  the 
fiction  that  the  Crown  is  of  no  political  party  ! 

Yet  there  is  a  good  story  of  Lord  Brougham  having  on 
one  occasion  pressed  on  William  IV.  the  perusal  of  the  corre- 
spondence between  George  III.  and  Lord  North,  to  show 
him  how  his  father  had  supported  his  Ministers,  and  of  the 
King's  having  answered,  "  But  George  III.,  my  Lord,  was  a 
party  man,  which  I  am  not  in  the  least."  (Creevey  Papers, 
ii.  318.)  So  little  is  it  given  to  any  of  us  to  see  himself  as 
others  see  us. 


William  the  Conquered  163 

But,  apart  from  politics,  William  IV.  made  a  good  im- 
pression on  his  contemporaries.  Creevey,  whose  language 
about  him  was  the  reverse  of  respectful,  tells  us  how  charmed 
he  was  by  a  very  simple  speech  made  to  him  by  the  King 
on  the  first  occasion  of  his  being  invited  to  dinner.  The 
King  said  :  "  Mr.  Creevey,  how  d'ye  do  ?  I  hope  you  are 
quite  well.  It  is  a  long  time  since  I  had  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  you.  Where  do  you  reside,  Mr.  Creevey  ?  "  (ii.  259.) 
And  despite  political  differences  the  King  won  the  affection 
of  his  Ministers  :  as  in  the  case  of  Lord  Grey,  who  in  February 
1834,  when  the  differences  amongst  his  colleagues  led  him 
to  threaten  to  retire,  told  the  Cabinet  that  the  conduct  of 
the  King  had  been  so  uniformly  kind  and  generous  that  he 
felt  it  would  be  very  dishonourable  to  desert  him  if  it  could 
be  avoided.  (Correspondence,  ii.  274.)  And  Lord  Melbourne, 
writing  to  his  brother  Sir  Frederick  Lamb  on  January  30, 1837, 
said,  "  the  King  is  the  fairest  man  in  the  world  when  matters 
are  fairly  put  before  him,"  though  naturally  impatient  of 
any  attempt  to  carry  measures  without  his  knowledge  or 
consent.  (Melbourne  Papers,  317.)  The  King  and  Mel- 
bourne had  certain  mental  affinities  :  the  King  in  a  letter 
to  his  Minister  of  August  16,  1835,  declaring  that  he  thought 
Melbourne  to  be  a  Conservative  in  the  truest  sense  of  the 
word,  and  to  as  great  a  degree  as  His  Majesty  himself. 
(ib.  309.)  And  it  was  Melbourne  who  described  William  IV. 
as  "  a  being  of  the  most  uncompromising  and  finest  honour 
that  it  had  ever  pleased  Divine  Providence  to  place  upon 
the  throne."     ($.365.) 


REIGN    IV:   QUEEN   VICTORIA 

CHAPTER    I 

Queen  Victoria,  Baron  Stockmar,  and  King  Leopold 

In  approaching  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria,  in  pursuance  of 
an  impartial  inquiry  into  the  practical  working  of  our  con- 
stitutional system,  one  is  met  at  the  threshold  by  the  feeling 
that  the  ground  is  one  which  veneration  for  the  Queen's 
character  and  life  has  made  almost  sacred  for  all  who  lived 
during  any  part  of  her  reign.  But  the  matter  here  of  in- 
terest is  not  the  personality  of  the  Queen  so  much  as  the 
political  system  which  it  was  her  lot  to  illustrate.  No  one 
was  more  anxious  than  herself  that  the  full  glare  of  truth 
should  light  up  all  the  incidents  and  secrets  of  her  reign  ; 
as  shown  by  the  sanction  she  gave  to  the  publication  of  Sir 
Theodore  Martin's  Life  of  the  Prince  Consort.  She  regarded 
her  reign  as  a  political  experiment,  about  which  she  was 
anxious  to  gratify  the  curiosity  of  posterity,  and  since  her 
death  still  more  light  has  been  thrown  on  her  reign  by  the 
three  volumes  of  her  correspondence  published  by  Lord 
Esher  and  Mr.  A.  C.  Benson  in  1907.  But,  grateful  as  we 
must  be  for  these  volumes,  they  only  carry  us  to  the  end 
of  1861,  and  they  are  only  selections  from  some  five  or  six 
hundred  volumes  which  the  Queen  and  Prince  had  com- 
piled to  that  period.  And  though  they  contain  many 
letters  between  the  Queen  and  Lord  John  Russell,  they 
draw  nothing  from  a  set  of  volumes  containing  the  Queen's 
letters  to  that  statesman.  But  in  any  case  the  published 
letters  supply  sufficient  material  for  all  practical  purposes 
of  study. 

On  the   Queen's  accession,   her  uncle   King  Leopold  of 
Belgium,  whom  Lord  Beaconsfield  once  described  as  "the 

i6S 


1 66  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

wisest  and  most  accomplished  of  living  princes  "  (Speeches, 
ii.  26),  recommended  her  to  study  for  the  next  few  years 
under  Baron  Stockmar,  than  whom  few  living  men  possessed 
more  general  information,  and  who  might  be  regarded  as 
"  a  living  dictionary  of  all  matters  scientific  and  politic  that 
happened  these  thirty  years."  She  would  thus  have  him 
constantly  near  her  without  anybody  having  the  right  of 
rinding  fault  with  it.     {Letters,  i.  105,  106,  June  30,  1837.) 

So  Baron  Stockmar,  once  private  physician  to  King 
Leopold  and  later  his  secretary,  at  the  age  of  forty-nine 
came  to  the  British  Court,  where  for  fifteen  months  he  held 
an  unofficial  position  as  the  Queen's  chief  adviser.  And 
when  in  the  winter  of  1838  it  was  a  question  of  a  travelling 
companion  and  tutor  for  Prince  Albert,  then  nineteen,  it 
was  with  Stockmar  that  the  Queen  and  her  uncle  arranged 
that  he  should  go  to  Italy.  At  that  age,  as  with  most  of 
us,  the  Prince  was  singularly  apathetic  about  politics ; 
Stockmar  complaining  that  he  would  read  no  newspapers 
even  about  the  most  important  events,  whilst  for  foreign 
ones  he  had  a  perfect  horror.  It  was  not  a  promising 
beginning  for  a  youth  who,  two  years  later,  on  February  10, 
1840,  was  destined  to  become  the  husband  of  our  English 
Queen.  But  so  well  did  the  Baron  use  his  opportunities  to 
write  what  he  liked  on  the  Prince's  unformed  mind  that  we 
find  the  Prince  within  a  few  months  of  his  marriage  offering 
his  views  and  advice  to  Lord  Melbourne,  then  Prime  Minister. 
"  Victoria,"  so  he  wrote  to  his  father  in  August  1840,  "  allows 
me  to  take  much  part  in  foreign  affairs,  and  I  think  I  have 
already  done  some  good.  I  always  commit  my  views  to 
paper,  and  then  communicate  them  to  Lord  Melbourne. 
He  seldom  answers  me,  but  I  have  the  satisfaction  of  seeing 
him  act  entirely  in  accordance  with  what  I  have  said." 
(Stockmar,  Memoirs,  ii.  493.)  And  considering  that  in  the 
autumn  of  that  year  our  treaty  with  Austria,  Prussia,  and 
Russia  all  but  brought  us  to  war  with  France,  Stockmar's 
pupil  must  have  made  astonishing  progress  between  the 
ages  of  nineteen  and  twenty-one.  Indeed,  Stockmar  in 
1843  vouched  for  his  quickness  in  seizing  important  points 
in  any  matter  ;  "  he  drives  his  talons  into  it,  like  a  vulture 
into  its  prey,  and  flies  off  with  it  to  his  nest."     (ib.  ii.  100.) 


Queen  Victoria,  Stock-mar,  and  Leopold    167 

So  it  was  not  without  justice  that  Lord  Liverpool,  writing 
to  the  Baron  on  October  7,  1841,  told  him  he  "  might  be 
truly  said  to  be  a  species  of  second  parent  to  the  Queen  and 
the  Prince."  {Letters,  i.  430.)  And  happily  the  Baron  was 
a  man  of  whom  Lord  Melbourne  could  write  to  the  Queen 
that  he  was  "  one  of  the  soundest  and  coolest  judgments 
that  Lord  Melbourne  had  ever  met  with,"  though  he  did 
suffer  from  "  a  settled  weakness  of  the  stomach,  the  seat 
of  health,  strength,  thought,  and  life  "  :  which  reminded 
him  of  the  story  that  Napoleon  lost  the  battle  of  Leipsic 
by  reason  of  some  greasy  soup  he  had  eaten  the  day  before. 
(ib.  i.  492,  April  6,  1842.) 

When  the  Prince  of  Wales  was  born  in  November  1841, 
it  was  at  Stockmar's  advice  that  King  Frederic  William  IV. 
of  Prussia  was  invited  to  be  a  godfather  to  the  future  King 
of  England  :  which  sets  one  wondering  whether  the  Prussian 
King's  favourite  idea  of  anglicanising  the  Church  of  Prussia 
by  the  aid  of  Bunsen  and  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
would,  if  successful,  have  averted  the  disastrous  quarrel  of 
1914.  Stockmar's  opinion  was  that  only  through  and  with 
England  could  Germany  hope  to  realise  the  influence  she 
aspired  to  over  the  affairs  of  the  world  ;  there  being  then  a 
traditional  desire  on  the  part  of  the  English  Cabinet  to  rest 
their  policy  on  Germany  as  likely  to  be  a  better  ally  than 
any  other  Power  for  the  preservation  of  the  peace  of  the 
world.  (Memoirs,  ii.  335,  November  12,  1848.)  Writing  in 
March  1854,  at  the  time  of  the  Crimean  War,  the  Baron 
wished  above  all  things  that  Prussia  and  Austria  should  join 
with  England  against  Russia,  the  object  of  the  war  being 
to  check  that  preponderance  of  Russia  which  she  had  asserted 
more  and  more  during  the  last  thirty  years.  This  Anglo - 
German  anti-Russian  alliance  was  the  political  idea  "  to 
forward  which  in  the  last  forty  years  I  have  not  let  the  least 
of  my  opportunities  pass  by  unimproved  and  to  which  in 
the  year  1846 1  had  won  my  late  friend  Peel."  (ib.  ii.  522,  523.) 
In  this  alliance  Stockmar  was  doomed  to  disappointment. 
Nothing  would  induce  King  Frederic  William  IV7.  of  Prussia 
to  join  in  a  war  against  his  brother-in-law  of  Russia.  Not 
even  the  Queen's  reproachful  letter  of  March  17,  1854,  in 
which  she  taunted  him  with  using  language  which,  however 


1 68  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

suitable  to  a  King  of  Hanover  or  Saxony,  was  unworthy  of 
a  Great  Power  like  Prussia,  had  any  effect.  And  among 
other  causes  of  Prussia's  determined  neutrality  was  a  rather 
curious  one.  Lord  Malmesbury's  story  is  that  Baron  Bunsen, 
the  Prussian  ambassador  in  London,  frightened  the  King 
from  joining  the  allies  by  sending  him  a  plan  of  England  and 
France  for  the  partition  of  his  territory.  (Memoirs,  ii.  429, 
March  23,  1854.)  But,  whatever  the  truth  of  this  story, 
Stockmar  failed  of  his  Anglo-German  alliance. 

Certainly  not  the  least  of  his  opportunities  had  been  the 
golden  one  of  his  influence  on  the  Prince  Consort  and  on 
the  Queen  ;  and  the  whole  of  the  Queen's  reign  was  coloured 
by  the  Baron's  Russophobism.  Bunsen,  in  a  letter  of  May  15, 
1848,  described  Stockmar  as  "  one  of  the  first  politicians  of 
Germany  and  of  Europe,"  and  as  "  the  silent  guide  of  the 
Court  of  Great  Britain."  (ib.  ii.  260.)  The  young  Queen 
and  her  young  Consort  were  like  clay  in  the  hands  of  this 
clever  potter,  who  was  always  flitting  to  and  fro  between 
the  English  Court  and  the  Continent.  In  1841,  when  the 
Ministry  of  Lord  Melbourne  was  tottering  to  its  fall,  Stockmar 
received  messages  more  and  more  pressing  from  the  English 
Court  to  return  to  London.  "  Why  are  you  not  here,"  wrote 
the  Prince  imploringly.  So  back  he  came  early  in  September, 
the  Government  having  fallen  on  August  30.     (ib.  ii.  49.) 

With  Peel,  Lord  Melbourne's  successor,  Stockmar  had  long 
negotiations  on  the  re-establishment  of  the  constitutional 
authority  of  the  Queen,  and  on  the  position  of  the  Prince. 
He  rightly  regarded  it  as  a  gap  in  our  Constitution  that  it 
was  silent  as  to  the  place  and  rights  and  duties  of  a  Prince 
Consort,  and  he  wished  for  these  to  be  defined  in  an  Act  of 
Parliament.  And  such  an  Act  would,  he  thought,  render 
unnecessary  the  Queen's  wish  expressed  in  December  1841 
for  conferring  on  the  Prince  the  title  of  King.  Peel,  however, 
resisted  both  suggestions  from  fear  of  Parliamentary  opposi- 
tion. But  the  Prince  became  thenceforth  the  Queen's  private 
secretary  and  counsellor,  taking  part  in  all  affairs  affecting 
the  Crown,  and  being  present,  as  he  had  not  been  under 
Melbourne,  at  all  the  audiences  she  had  with  her  Ministers. 
(ib.  ii.  494.)  As  he  described  himself  on  April  6,  1850,  in  a 
letter  to  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  he  became  the  Queen's 


Queen  Victoria,  Stockmar,  and  Leopold     169 

"  sole  confidential  adviser  in  politics,  and  only  assistant  in 
her  communications  with  the  officers  of  the  Government, 
her  private  secretary  and  permanent  Minister."     (Martin's 
Prince  Consort,  i.  74,  ii.  260.)     Nice  and  natural  as  this  was, 
it  was  calculated  to  place  the  real  Prime  Minister  often  in  a 
difficult   position.     And  so  the   Prince's   position   remained 
for   the   next   fourteen   years,    through   several    changes   of 
Ministry,  and  with  no  apparent  friction.     A  month  before 
William  IV.  died,  the  Queen's  uncle,  King  Leopold  of  Belgium, 
had  sent  Stockmar  to  train  the  future  Queen  Victoria  in  sound 
constitutional  principles,  nor  could  he  have  sent  a  better 
tutor,  who  was  also,  in  the  words  of  Sir  Theodore  Martin, 
"the  mental  foster-father  "  of  her  future  consort.      Stockmar's 
advice  to  the  Queen  and  Prince  was  uniformly  discreet,  as 
when  he  opposed  the  Queen's  desire  in  1841  for  the  Prince 
to  have  the  title  of  King  Consort.     His  idea  of  the  political 
attitude  of  the  Crown  was  a  strict  and  exalted  neutrality, 
and  it  was  due  to  the  success  with  which  he  inculcated  this 
idea  that  the  Queen  was  able  to  write  to  King  Leopold  on 
October  29,  1844,  that  "  they  say   no   Sovereign  was  ever 
more  beloved  than  I  am  "  {Letters,  i.  243) ;  that  Peel  was  able 
to  say  in  1845  that  monarchy  had  never  stood  so  well  in 
England  before  (ib.  i.  259) ;    and  that  the  Prince  could  write 
to  Stockmar  on  May  18,  1848,  that  "  Monarchy  never  stood 
higher  in  England  than  it  does  at  present."     (ib.  ii.  49.) 

The  Baron's  political  reading  of  the  wording  of  the  English 
Constitution  is  given  in  the  long  letter  he  wrote  to  the  Prince 
on  January  22,  1854,  at  the  time  when  the  whole  Press  had 
made  a  dead  set  at  the  Prince  for  his  alleged  unconstitutional 
position  and  actions,  and  when,  as  he  put  it  himself,  "  the 
stupidest  trash  was  babbled  to  the  public,  so  stupid  that 
(as  they  say  in  Coburg)  you  would  not  give  it  to  the  pigs  to 
litter  in."  (Martin,  ii.  535,  December  27,  1853.)  The  letter 
well  serves  to  indicate  the  curious  political  philosophy  the 
Baron  had  instilled  into  the  Queen  and  her  Consort  since  the 
beginning  of  their  close  intimacy. 

The  position  of  the  Throne,  so  held  Stockmar,  had  fallen 
more  and  more  into  obscurity,  and  since  1830  had  been  in 
constant  danger  of  becoming  a  pure  Ministerial  Government. 
Ministers,  from  sheer  want  of  goodwill,  had  neglected  their 


170 


The  Monarchy  in  Politics 


duty  of  protecting  the  Royal  prerogative.  Since  the  old 
pre-Reform  Tories  had  died  out,  the  modern  ones  had  become 
"  simply  degenerate  bastards,"  whilst  the  Whigs  stood  to  the 
Throne  as  the  wolf  to  the  lamb.  Pushing  to  an  extreme  the 
dangerous  constitutional  fiction  which  prohibited  the  use  of 
the  Sovereign's  name  in  debates  on  constitutional  matters, 
and  being  suffered  to  do  so  by  the  Crown,  they  were  impressing 
the  public  with  the  belief  that  the  King  in  law  was  nothing 
but  a  mandarin  figure,  compelled  to  nod  or  shake  its  head  in 
assent  or  denial  as  his  Ministers  pleased.  Since,  then,  these 
politicians  of  the  Aberdeen  school  treated  the  existing  Con- 
stitution merely  as  a  bridge  to  a  Republic,  it  was  most  im- 
portant to  countenance  such  a  fiction  only  provisionally,  and 
to  let  no  opportunity  slip  of  vindicating  the  legitimate  position 
of  the  Crown.  This  could  best  be  done  by  placing  the  Royal 
prerogative  no  higher  than  the  right  of  the  King  to  be  per- 
manent President  of  his  Ministerial  Council.  The  most 
stupid  of  Englishmen  knew  that  his  country  was  always 
governed  by  one  party,  and  that  the  Premier  was  only  the 
chief  of  that  party,  and  as  such  was  always  tempted  to  place 
the  transitory  interests  of  his  party  above  the  more  sub- 
stantial ones  of  his  country. 

"  The  twaddle  about  Ministers  being  responsible  to  the 
nation  for  every  fault  of  head  or  heart  "  would  not  keep 
matters  straight  ;  for  the  responsible  Minister  might  do  the 
most  stupid  and  mischievous  things,  and  yet  come  to  no  worse 
punishment  than  resignation  or  dismissal.  Only  the  Sove- 
reign, free  from  party  passion,  could  avert  such  evils,  by 
the  exercise  of  an  independent  judgment.  It  was  for  the 
Sovereign,  as  able,  as  accomplished,  as  patriotic  as  his 
Ministers,  to  take  a  part  in  the  initiation  and  maturing  of 
Government  measures.  The  Sovereign  should  thus  act  as 
"  a  permanent  Premier,  who  takes  rank  above  the  temporary 
head  of  the  Cabinet,  and  in  matters  of  discipline  exercises 
supreme  authority." 

The  sixteen  years  of  the  Queen's  reign  had  proved  to 
Stockmar  the  extreme  value  of  the  moral  purity  of  the 
Sovereign,  "  as  an  example  to  the  people,  as  moral  oil  for 
the  driving-wheels  of  the  Constitutional  machine."  That 
machine   only   worked   smoothly   when   the    Sovereign    was 


Queen  Victoria,  Stockmar,  and  Leopold     171 

upright  and  truthful,  whereas,  when  he  had  been  insincere, 
mendacious,  and  wicked  (as  in  the  case  of  George  IV.  and 
William  IV.),  it  had  creaked  and  fouled,  and  jolted  till  within 
an  ace  of  coming  to  a  deadlock.  His  desire  to  see  its  stability 
secured  was  because  in  his  eyes  "  the  English  Constitution 
was  the  foundation,  corner  and  cope-stone  of  all  the  political 
civilisation  of  the  human  race,  present  and  to  come."  But 
to  maintain  the  balance  of  the  Constitution,  it  was  necessary 
to  throw  the  popularity  of  the  Sovereign  into  the  scale  against 
the  weight  and  pressure  of  the  democratic  element,  which 
had  become  preponderant  since  the  Reform  Act.  It  should 
be  the  Minister's  first  duty  to  defend  the  Sovereign's  deserved 
popularity,  whilst  it  should  be  the  Prince's  to  lend  all  the 
aid  in  his  power  "  towards  the  assumption  by  the  Lords  of 
their  right  position  in  the  Legislature."     (Martin,  ii.  545-7.) 

The  only  flaw  in  this  theory  of  the  Sovereign  as  a  per- 
manent non-partisan  President  is  the  same  that  applies  to  a 
similar  theory  of  the  non-partisan  function  of  the  House  of 
Lords,  namely,  the  obvious  incompatibility  with  human 
nature  of  such  a  non-partisan  attitude  on  the  part  of  either 
the  Crown  or  the  Peerage.  Except  in  matters  indifferent, 
the  Crown  is  bound  to  lean  to  one  party  or  the  other.  The 
Queen's  grandfather  and  her  two  uncles  had  all  been  strongly 
partisan,  nor,  with  the  best  will  in  the  world,  could  the  Queen 
always  steer  clear  of  the  same  tendency.  Also,  a  political 
system  which  depended  so  much  for  success  on  the  moral 
character  of  the  Sovereign  was  obviously  one  which  could 
never  have  any  security  beyond  the  life  of  the  reigning 
Sovereign. 

In  any  case,  the  Prince's  adoption  in  theory  and  practice 
of  this  latter  idea  had  the  result  which  Stockmar  expected 
and  desired.  It  raised  the  prestige  of  the  Crown  to  a  height 
that  would  have  seemed  impossible  between  1820  and  1837. 

At  bottom  Stockmar's  love  for  the  British  Constitution 
resolved  itself  into  love  for  monarchical  influence.  On 
December  27,  1845,  he  wrote  to  the  Prince  that  he  had  never 
been  able  to  discover  that  balance  of  the  elements  of  their 
Constitution  of  which  Englishmen  made  such  boast.  He 
regretted  that  Peel  had  done  nothing  to  strengthen  the 
monarchical  element  ;  the  most  that  could  be  said  of  him  was 


172  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

that  he  had  not  helped  to  make  Monarchy  weaker  than  it 
was  when  handed  over  to  him  by  Melbourne.  Since  1830, 
the  executive  power  had  been  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the 
Ministry,  and  these  had  been  more  the  servants  of  Parliament 
— practically  of  the  House  of  Commons — than  of  the  Crown  ; 
and  this  was  a  distortion  of  the  fundamental  idea  of  the 
British  Constitution.  He  was  all  for  "  the  right  of  the  Crown 
to  assert  itself  as  permanent  head  of  the  Council  over  the 
temporary  leader  of  the  Ministry."  (Martin,  i.  313-5.)  To 
which  the  Prince  replied  on  January  6,  1846,  that  to  his 
mind  the  "  exaltation  of  Royalty  was  possible  only  through 
the  personal  character  of  the  Sovereign."     (ib.  i.  316.) 

Nothing  could  have  been  finer  than  Stockmar's  counsel 
to  the  Prince  on  September  27,  1847,  when  he  wrote  :  "  Con- 
sider politics  only  as  the  means  of  doing  service  as  far  as  in 
you  lies  to  the  whole  human  race  "  (ib.  i.  435)  ;  counsel 
which  bore  fruit  in  the  Prince's  conception  of  the  first  great 
International  Exhibition,  referring  to  which  in  his  speech 
at  the  Mansion  House  on  March  21,  1850,  he  alluded  to  "  that 
great  end  to  which  indeed  all  history  pointed — the  realisation 
of  the  unity  of  mankind."  (ib.  ii.  247.)  This  may  be  taken 
as  the  earliest  recognition  of  that  cosmopolitan  feeling  which 
affords  the  chief  hope  for  the  ultimate  pacification  of  the 
world.  But  though  the  Baron  reached  these  nobler  political 
ideals,  his  influence,  as  regards  English  politics,  ran  counter 
to  the  natural  line  of  political  development.  Though  convinced 
that  England  had  no  wish  for  a  Republic,  and  that  Constitu- 
tional Monarchy  was  more  popular  than  ever,  he  deplored 
the  movement  of  the  House  of  Commons  towards  another 
form  of  Government  under  the  forms  of  the  Constitution,  and 
longed  for  a  series  of  able  statesmen  to  resist  it.  (Memoirs, 
ii.  448.)  He  complained  that  since  the  Reform  Bill  there 
had  been  so  great  a  scarcity  of  able  English  statesmen,  who 
could  withstand  the  tendency  of  the  House  of  Commons  to 
become  omnipotent  at  the  expense  of  the  Executive.  "  I 
don't  care  a  straw,"  he  wrote,  "  for  Whigs  and  Tories,  and 
their  respective  miserable  party  interests  and  feelings." 
(ib.  ii.  446.)  Again  :  "  This  English  mania  of  making  all 
political  wisdom  to  consist  in  the  art  of  satisfying  Parliament 
and  of  tricking  it  by  means  of  clever  speeches  makes  me  sick." 


Queen  Victoria,  Stockmar,  and  Leopold     173 

(ib.  ii.  450.)  Such  ideas  were  hardly  safe  ones  to  instil  into 
the  minds  of  the  Queen  and  her  Consort  ;  and  it  is  to  the 
credit  of  both  that  they  never  led  to  disaster. 

But  it  was  in  the  field  of  foreign  politics  that  the  Baron 
more  especially  sought  a  controlling  influence  over  the 
Royal  pair.  For  forty  years,  from  1814  to  1854,  his  dream  had 
been  of  that  Anglo-German  alliance  for  which  he  had  let  slip 
no  opportunity.  To  this  idea  he  boasted  of  having  made  a 
convert  of  Peel,  who  in  a  letter  of  March  1848  wrote  :  "  I 
have  always  been  a  warm  adherent  of  an  alliance  with 
Germany."  (ib.  ii.  426.)  Lord  Palmerston,  on  the  other 
hand,  leant  more  to  an  alliance  with  France,  at  least  after 
1852,  as  he  was  "  afraid  of  the  German  love  of  conquest." 
(ib.  ii.  339.)  And  the  Duke  of  Argyll's  evidence  is  that 
"  Palmerston  hated  Prussia,  and  had  the  worst  opinion  of  the 
motives  of  Prussian  statesmen.  They  were  playing  a  game 
for  the  hegemony  of  Germany,  and  not  at  all  for  the  establish- 
ment of  constitutional  liberty  among  the  German  people." 
For  this  reason  he  was  hated  in  return  by  the  German 
Unionists  (Autobiography,  i.  333),  including  doubtless  Stock- 
mar  himself,  who  did  not  scruple  to  think  Palmerston  mad. 

This  fundamental  difference  came  to  a  head  after 
Palmerston's  approval  of  the  coup  d'etat  of  Louis  Bonaparte 
in  December  1851,  when  the  Prince,  as  Stockmar  says, 
"  stood  up  for  the  right  of  supervision  and  control  belonging 
to  the  Crown  in  foreign  policy."  (Memoirs,  ii.  458.)  Stock- 
mar could  only  ascribe  Palmerston's  action  to  insanity,  and 
he  declared  that  since  November  he  had  thought  "  the  man 
had  been  for  some  time  insane."  On  December  22,  1851, 
he  wrote  :  "  Ever  since  I  returned  here,  therefore,  for  the 
last  two  months,  he  has  been  guilty  of  follies  which  confirm 
me  more  and  more  in  my  opinion  that  he  is  not  quite  right 
in  his  mind."  (ib.  ii.  458.)  This  of  the  Foreign  Minister  of 
England  ! 

No  wonder  that  with  "  the  silent  guide  of  the  English 
Court  "  instilling  such  notions  of  the  Foreign  Minister  into 
the  Royal  mind,  the  relations  between  the  Court  and  Palmer- 
ston had  been  to  the  last  degree  lacking  in  harmony.  For 
this  Palmerston  was  himself  partly  to  blame,  but  something 
must  be  put  down  to  the  secret  influence  behind  the  Throne 


174  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

and  between  the  Throne  and  the  Ministry :  an  influence  which, 
however  more  beneficial,  was  more  operative  than  it  had  been 
since  the  days  of  Lord  Bute. 

The  situation  reached  a  climax  in  December  1853,  when 
the  Crimean  War  was  about  to  begin.  Palmerston  resigned 
the  Home  Office  on  December  16,  only  to  resume  it  on 
December  26.  But  the  destruction  by  the  Russians  of  the 
Turkish  fleet  at  Sinope  roused  public  indignation  to  white 
heat.  The  whole  Press  attacked  the  Prince,  who  wrote  to 
Stockmar  in  December  23  :  "  The  state  of  politics  have  been 
quite  insane.  .  .  .  The  defeat  of  the  Turks  at  Sinope  has 
made  the  people  furious  .  .  .  one  almost  fancies  oneself  in 
a  lunatic  asylum."  (Martin,  ii.  533.)  It  was  a  time  "  when 
we  might  fancy  we  were  living  in  a  madhouse,"  he  wrote  on 
January  24,  1854.  But  this  idea  of  the  public  as  "  quite 
mad  "  (Letters,  ii.  574)  was  not  confined  to  the  Prince.  For 
the  Duke  of  Argyll,  belonging  to  the  Cabinet,  wrote  of  the 
agitation  in  the  country  as  amounting  to  "  a  frenzy,"  which 
had  seized  all  classes,  all  ranks,  and  all  parties.  "  Bad 
suspicions  of  everybody  who  was  supposed  to  be  in  favour 
of  peace  were  among  the  dangerous  symptoms  of  the  time." 
(Autobiography,  i.  459.)  Among  the  foremost  victims  of 
the  public  wrath  was  the  Prince,  who  was  attacked  for  his 
correspondence  with  foreign  courts,  for  his  interference 
with  the  army,  for  his  dislike  of  Palmerston.  The  Prince 
went  very  candidly  into  the  causes  of  this  storm  of  un- 
popularity. The  old  High  Tory  or  Protectionist  party 
disliked  him  for  his  past  friendship  with  Peel,  and  for  the 
success  of  the  Exhibition.  The  army  bore  him  a  grudge  ; 
Lord  Raglan  and  his  following  had  never  forgiven  him  for 
having  promoted  Lord  Hardinge,  instead  of  Lord  Raglan, 
to  be  Commander-in-Chief.  And  the  public  had  suddenly 
awoke  to  the  fact  that  he  had  for  years  taken  an  active 
interest  in  all  political  matters.  To  such  a  height  did  the 
excitement  run  that,  as  the  Prince  wrote,  "  My  being  com- 
mitted to  the  Tower  was  believed  all  over  the  country,  nay, 
even  that  the  Queen  had  been  arrested.  People  surrounded 
the  Tower  in  thousands  to  see  us  brought  to  it."  (Martin,  ii. 
562.)  It  was  a  time  when  apparently  every  one  thought 
every  one  mad  but  himself. 


Queen  Victoria,  Stockmar,  and  Leopold     175 

To  enhance  the  power  of  the  Crown,  to  strengthen  the 
Executive  at  the  cost  of  the  Legislature,  was  the  great  idea 
with  which  Stockmar  imbued  the  Queen.  And  King 
Leopold's  advice  to  his  niece  coincided  with  Stockmar's. 
As  early  in  her  reign  as  January  16,  1838,  he  begged  her  to 
consult  with  Lord  Melbourne  "  on  the  subject  of  what 
ought  to  be  done  to  keep  for  the  Crown  the  little  influence  it 
still  may  possess."  "  The  Sovereign,"  he  said,  "  should  be 
constantly  occupied  in  preserving  the  elements  by  which 
monarchy  was  carried  on,  or,  should  they  have  been  too 
much  weakened  by  untoward  circumstances,  to  contrive 
by  every  means  to  strengthen  them  again."  "  The  Queen," 
he  added,  "  was  too  clever  not  to  know  that  the  being  called 
Queen  or  King  was  not  of  the  least  consequence,  unless  those 
titles  carried  the  power  indispensable  for  their  use."  (Letters, 
i.  134.)  Later,  on  January  15,  1847,  he  professed  himself 
astounded  by  the  change  effected  by  the  French  Revolution 
of  July  1830  ;  for  whilst  in  France  only  the  dynasty  was 
changed,  in  England  the  very  spirit  of  the  old  Monarchy  had 
been  abolished,  (ib.  ii.  138.)  It  is  evident  that  these 
ideas  had  as  much  influence  on  the  Queen  as  the  identical 
ones  held  by  Stockmar  had  on  the  Prince.  Both  wished  to 
revive  the  spirit  of  the  old  Monarchy. 

The  whole  of  the  Queen's  reign  bore  the  marks  of  this 
early  training.  Much  as  she  loved  her  country,  she  loved  the 
Monarchy  more.  Much  as  she  may  have  believed  in  the 
wisdom  of  Parliament,  she  believed  more  strongly  in  her 
personal  direction  of  it.  Such  was  her  veneration  for 
Charles  I.  the  Royal  Martyr,  that  she  preserved  all  the  relics 
she  could  collect  of  the  Stuart  family  with  a  sort  of  adoration. 
(Quarterly  Review,  exciii.  335.)  And  such  was  her  dislike  for 
Cromwell,  and  so  little  could  she  bear  the  word  Common- 
wealth, that,  when  the  Australian  Commonwealth  Bill  was 
about  to  pass,  she  avowed  her  misgivings  about  the  word 
and  suggested  Dominion  instead.  (Sir  S.  Lee's  Victoria, 
529,  530.)  She  accepted,  rather  than  assented  to,  represent - 
tive  Government,  and  was  sustained  in  the  glorious  devotion 
of  her  life  to  the  cares  of  the  State  by  the  conviction  that  such 
devotion  was  indispensable  to  its  safety.  As  the  writer 
in  the  Quarterly  wrote  in  April  1901  :    "  She  was  really  per- 


176  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

suaded  that  all  the  institutions  of  the  country  would  crumble 
if  her  orders  were  not  carried  out  to  the  letter  and  to  the 
instant.  Very  few  people  knew  how  superbly  she  continued 
to  stand  sentry  to  the  business  of  her  Empire.  She  never 
relapsed  her  hold,  she  never  withdrew  under  the  excuse  of 
sorrow  or  weakness  or  old  age."  And  happily  also  "  in 
small  things  as  in  great  the  Queen  never  believed  that  she 
was  or  could  be  wrong  on  a  matter  of  principle." 


CHAPTER    II 

Early  Victorian  Politics 

Notwithstanding  the  popularity  of  the  Queen  at  her 
accession,  a  certain  cooling  in  ardour  of  men's  loyalty  was 
indicated  by  the  difference  between  the  sum  of  £230,000, 
which  Parliament  had  voted  for  the  Coronation  of  George  IV., 
and  the  £70,000  which  it  voted  for  that  of  Queen  Victoria. 
The  two  previous  reigns  had  undoubtedly  produced  a  strong 
republican  feeling,  such  as  was  reflected  in  the  Letter  to  the 
Queen  on  the  State  of  the  Monarchy  which  some  unknown 
writer  falsely  ascribed  to  the  paternity  of  Lord  Brougham. 
In  the  outer  political  world  there  was  much  turmoil  of 
thought,  which  was  reflected  within  the  walls  of  Parliament 
itself.  Scenes  there  were  frequent,  and  indeed  had  become 
more  frequent  since  the  passing  of  the  great  Reform  Bill  of 
1832.  Greville  declares  that  in  the  golden  days  prior  to 
Reform  nothing  was  ever  heard  in  the  House  of  Commons 
but  coughs  or  cheers,  whereas,  since  then  it  had  been  nothing 
but  shouts,  and  hootings  and  groans  and  noises  the  most 
discordant  that  the  human  voice  could  emit,  accompanied 
by  the  beating  of  sticks  and  feet  on  the  floor,  (iii.  250.)  Of 
a  two  days'  debate  he  wrote  on  December  8,  1837  :  "  It  is 
said  that  such  a  scene  of  disorder,  and  such  a  bear-garden, 
never  was  beheld.  The  noise  and  confusion  was  so  great 
that  the  proceedings  could  hardly  be  heard  and  under- 
stood "  ;  the  Speaker  being  even  driven  to  a  threat  of 
resignation,  (iv.  32.)  Again,  on  February  27,  1838  :  "  The 
scene  which  ensued  appears  to  have  been  something  like 
that  which  a  meeting  of  Bedlam  or  Billingsgate  might 
produce."  (iv.  71.)  The  state  of  things  was  hardly  one 
to  impress  the  new  Sovereign  with  an  exalted  idea  of 
democracy  or  of  representative  government. 

Meantime,   the   faithful    Melbourne    spent    month    after 

12 


178  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

month  at  Court,  driving  Greville  to  wonder  how  he  could 
have  been  tempted  to  exchange  the  good  talk  of  Holland 
House  for  "  the  trivial,  laboured,  and  wearied  inanities  of 
the  Royal  circle."  (Greville,  iv.  154.)  And  the  apathy  of  the 
Prime  Minister  seemed  to  have  a  sobering  effect  on  the 
country  ;  for  on  March  25,  1839,  Greville  wrote  :  "  The 
great  characteristic  of  the  present  time  is  indifference ; 
nobody  appears  to  care  for  anything  ;  nobody  cares  for  the 
Queen  ;  her  popularity  has  sunk  to  zero,  and  loyalty  is  a 
dead  letter ;  nobody  cares  for  the  Government  or  for  any 
man  or  set  of  men."     (ib.  iv.  103,  104.) 

But  a  storm  soon  ruffled  this  placid  sea  ;  for  when  on 
May  1839  Lord  Melbourne  was  defeated  by  294  to  289  on 
the  Jamaica  Bill,  the  Queen  wrote  that  she  had  been  unable 
to  touch  a  morsel  of  food  that  evening  nor  the  next  morn- 
ing. (Letters,  i.  197,  May  8,  1839.)  When  it  came  to 
actual  resignation  the  Queen  in  her  interview  with  Lord 
John  Russell  was  "  all  the  time  dissolved  in  tears."  (Greville, 
iv.  206.)  But  the  trouble  was  shortlived,  for  Sir  Robert 
Peel  at  once  came  into  collision  with  the  Queen  on  the 
question  of  dismissing  the  Ladies  of  the  Royal  Household. 
A  letter  from  her  to  Melbourne  about  her  interview  with 
Peel  was  shown  to  the  Cabinet  :  "  Do  not  fear,"  she  said, 
"  that  I  was  not  calm  and  collected.  They  wanted  to 
deprive  me  of  my  Ladies,  and  I  suppose  they  would  deprive 
me  next  of  my  dressers  and  housemaids  ;  they  wished  to 
treat  me  like  a  girl,  but  I  will  show  them  that  I  am  Queen 
of  England."  So,  at  least,  says  Greville  (iv.  209) ;  but 
her  letter  of  May  9,  in  her  published  letters,  runs  rather 
differently  :  "I  was  calm  but  very  decided,  and  I  think  you 
would  have  been  pleased  to  see  my  composure  and  great 
firmness ;  the  Queen  of  England  will  not  submit  to  such 
trickery."  (Letters,  i.  305.)  Not  a  word  about  dressers  or 
housemaids  ;  yet  it  is  not  likely  that  she  wrote  two  letters 
on  the  same  subject  to  the  same  man  about  the  same  event. 
Clearly  Greville  must  be  taken  with  due  allowance  for  a 
love  of  colour.  It  is  well  known  in  later  years  that  the  Queen 
intimated  that  her  action  had  been  wrong  and  hasty  (ib.  i. 
211  note) ;  but  her  non-compliance  with  Peel's  perfectly 
constitutional  request  met  with  the  hearty  approval  of  her 
uncle,  who  wrote  on  May  17  that  he  approved  very  highly  of 


Early  Victorian  Politics  179 

the  whole  mode  of  her  procedure,  and  that,  as  Peel  had  been 
forced  upon  her,  she  was  under  no  obligation  to  show  him  the 
mark  of  confidence  he  had  asked  of  her  before  taking  office. 
(ib.  i.  221.) 

Thus  the  Queen,  with  the  best  non-party  intentions,  was 
driven  by  circumstances  into  a  strong  partisan  attitude. 
Writing  to  her  uncle  on  June  19,  1837,  when  William  IV. 
was  dying,  the  future  Queen  had  declared  :  "I  never  showed 
myself,  openly,  to  belong  to  any  party,  and  I  do  not  belong  to 
any  party  "  ;  and  by  this  rule  of  political  correctitude  she 
always  tried  to  steer  her  difficult  course.  But  the  task  lay 
beyond  the  bounds  of  human  nature  ;  and  she  began  her 
reign  with  a  great  dislike  of  the  Tories,  which  they  hand- 
somely reciprocated.  Greville  remarks  on  September  5, 
1839,  as  "among  the  bad  signs  of  the  times  the  decay  of 
loyalty  in  the  Tory  party  "  (which  was  his  own).  "  No 
Opposition  was  ever  more  rabid  than  this  is,  no  people  ever 
treated  or  spoke  of  the  Sovereign  with  such  marked  dis- 
respect. They  seem  not  to  care  one  straw  for  the  Crown,  its 
dignity,  or  its  authority,  because  the  head  on  which  it  is 
placed  does  not  nod  with  benignity  to  them."  (iv.  246.) 
"  Do  what  one  will,  nothing  will  please  these  Tories,"  the 
Queen  wrote  on  December  6,  1839  (Letters,  i.  257),  and  on 
December  26,  1839  :  "  As  to  the  Tories,  I  am  still  raging  ; 
they  abuse  and  grumble  incessantly  in  the  most  incredible 
manner."  (ib.  i.  262.)  "  The  Tories  really  are  very  astonish- 
ing," she  wrote  to  Prince  Albert  on  January  21,  1840  ;  "  as 
they  cannot  and  dare  not  attack  us  in  Parliament,  they 
do  everything  that  they  can  to  be  personally  rude  to  me. 
.  .  .  The  Whigs  are  the  only  safe  and  loyal  people,  and  the 
Radicals  will  also  rally  round  their  Queen  to  protect  her 
from  the  Tories  ;  but  it  is  a  curious  sight  to  see  those  who, 
as  Tories,  used  to  pique  themselves  upon  their  excessive 
loyalty,  doing  everything  to  degrade  their  young  Sovereign 
in  the  eyes  of  the  people."     (ib.  i.  268.) 

And  the  Tories  met  the  Queen  with  equal  hostility. 
Greville  describes  Bradshaw's  speech  at  Canterbury  in 
November  1839  as  "  a  personal  attack  of  the  most  violent 
and  indecent  kind  upon  the  Queen."  It  was  received  with 
shouts  of  applause  at  a  Conservative  dinner  (iv.  252),  and 


180  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

was  followed  elsewhere  by  similar  "  rabid  and  disloyal 
effusions."  The  Tories,  he  said,  were  "  ready  to  roll  the 
Crown  in  the  dust  and  trample  it  under  their  feet." 
(ib.  iv.  253.) 

This  was  not  a  promising  beginning  for  a  non-partisan 
reign,  nor  was  the  difficulty  lessened  by  the  Queen's  strong 
personal  liking  for  Melbourne  and  her  equally  strong  aver- 
sion to  Peel.  She  told  Melbourne  that  the  latter's  em- 
barrassed manner  conveyed  itself  to  her,  and  she  felt  she 
could  never  get  over  it.  (Letters,  i.  384.)  "  He  is  such  a  cold, 
odd  man,  she  can't  make  out  what  he  means,"  she  wrote 
to  Melbourne  on  May  8,  1839.     (ib.  i.  200.) 

When,  therefore,  on  May  24,  1841,  a  majority  of  one  on 
a  vote  of  confidence  brought  Lord  Melbourne's  Government 
to  an  end,  and  brought  in  Peel,  all  her  grievances  recurred  in 
an  acute  form  to  her  recollection. 

The  remembrance  of  Peel's  demand  for  a  change  in  the 
Ladies  of  her  Bedchamber,  which  had  led  to  his  failure  to 
form  a  Government  in  1839,  naturally  still  harassed  her  ; 
nor  could  she  forgive  the  Tories  for  the  part  they  had  played 
in  1840,  when  in  conjunction  with  the  Radicals  they  had 
reduced  the  proposed  annuity  to  the  Prince  from  £50,000  to 
£30,000,  in  accordance  with  Greville's  opinion  that  £50,000 
a  year  for  pocket-money  was  "  quite  monstrous."  (iv.  267.) 
The  intimation  by  Lord  John  Russell  of  Peel's  possibly 
proposing  an  increased  grant  she  met  by  the  reply  that  she 
"  would  never  allow  such  a  thing  to  be  proposed,  and  that 
it  would  be  a  disgrace  to  owe  any  favour  to  that  party." 
(Letters,  i.  375.)  She  expressed  herself  in  a  similar  sense  to 
Mr.  Anson  on  October  5,  1841,  saying  that  Peel  now  probably 
regretted  his  opposition  to  the  grant  originally  proposed, 
"  but  it  was,  and  was  intended  to  be,  a  personal  insult  to 
herself,  and  it  was  followed  up  by  opposition  to  her  private 
wishes  in  the  precedency  question,  where  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton took  the  lead  against  her  wishes,  as  Peel  had  done  in  the 
Commons  against  the  Prince's  grant.  She  never  could 
forget  it,  and  no  favour  to  her  should  come  from  such  a 
quarter."  (ib.  i.  426.)  In  the  same  spirit  she  told  the 
Prince  that  after  the  manner  in  which  the  Tories  had  treated 
him   in   that   matter   "  he   ought   now  to   keep  them  at  a 


Early  Victorian  Politics  181 

distance."  (ib.  i.  382.)  So,  although  Lord  Melbourne  had 
advised  the  Queen,  on  August  30,  1841,  that  she  should  see 
Peel  more  often  than  the  once  a  week  that  had  sufficed  for 
himself  and  William  IV.,  we  find  her  thus  describing  the 
situation  to  her  uncle  on  September  24,  1841,  "  I  own  I  am 
much  happier  when  I  need  not  see  the  Ministers  ;  luckily 
they  do  not  want  to  see  me  often."     (ib.  i.  416.) 

But  Melbourne  she  had  seen  far  more  frequently  than  once 
a  week.  For  to  her  Uncle  Leopold  she  wrote  of  her  lost 
Minister  on  September  8,  1841  :  "  After  seeing  him  for  four 
years,  with  very  few  exceptions — daily — you  may  imagine 
that  I  must  feel  the  change  ;  and  the  longer  the  time  gets 
since  we  parted,  the  more  I  feel  it.  Eleven  days  was  the 
longest  I  ever  was  without  seeing  him."  (ib.  i.  402.)  Only 
her  home  and  the  Prince  afforded  her  any  consolation. 
(ib.  i.  400.)  "  What  the  Queen  felt,"  she  wrote  to  Lord 
Melbourne  on  August  30,  1841,  "  when  she  parted  from  her 
dear,  kind  friend,  Lord  Melbourne,  is  better  imagined  than 
described  ;  she  was  dreadfully  affected  for  some  time  after, 
but  is  calm  now."     (ib.  i.  390.) 

The  situation  was  obviously  one  of  some  constitutional 
danger,  of  which  Melbourne  himself  was  fully  conscious. 
For  his  promise  to  write  to  the  Queen,  whenever  she  wished, 
as  arranged  by  the  Prince  to  her  great  relief  (ib.  i.  382), 
would  expose  him  to  be  always  suspected  of  secret  inter- 
course and  intrigue,  as  Lord  Bute  had  been  in  the  early  years 
of  George  III.  (ib.  i.  384.)  It  was  difficult  for  such  corre- 
spondence to  keep  off  political  ground,  and  Stockmar's 
sagacity  was  never  better  shown  than  in  perceiving  and 
warning  against  the  danger.  "  As  long,"  he  wrote  on  October 
6,  1841,  "  as  the  secret  communication  exists  between  Her 
Majesty  and  Lord  Melbourne,  this  ground,  upon  which  alone 
Sir  Robert  could  obtain  the  position  necessary  to  him  as 
Premier,  must  remain  cut  away  from  under  his  feet.  I 
hold,  therefore,  this  secret  interchange  an  essential  injustice 
to  Sir  Robert's  present  situation  ...  a  continued  corre- 
spondence of  that  sort  must  be  fraught  with  imminent  danger 
to  the  Queen,  especially  to  Lord  Melbourne  and  to  the 
State."  (ib.  i.  427.)  He  warned  Melbourne  that  "  it 
would  be  impossible  to  carry  on  this  secret  commerce  with 


1 82  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

the  Sovereign  for  any  length  of  time  without  exposing  the 
Queen's  character  and  creating  mighty  embarrassments  in 
the  quiet  and  regular  working  of  a  Constitutional  machine." 
{Letters,  i.  443.)  But  despite  the  Baron's  remonstrance  the 
correspondence  continued,  with  the  consequence  foreseen, 
that  it  naturally  excited  the  jealousy  of  Peel,  who  at  an  inter- 
view with  Stockmar  said  :  "  On  this  I  must  insist,  and  I 
do  assure  you,  that  that  moment  I  was  to  learn  that  the 
Queen  takes  advice  upon  public  matters  in  another  place, 
I  shall  throw  up  ;  for  such  a  thing  I  conceive  the  country 
could  not  stand,  and  I  would  not  remain  an  hour,  whatever 
the  consequences  of  my  resignation  may  be."  (ib.  i.  454.) 
At  the  end  of  the  year,  Anson,  the  Prince's  secretary,  noted 
that  Melbourne  had  taken  no  notice  of  the  Baron's  re- 
monstrance, though  the  correspondence  continued  with 
diminished  vigour.  The  Queen  also  interested  herself  less 
and  less  about  politics,  and  either  grew  to  like  her  Tory 
Ministers  more  or  to  dislike  them  less.     (ib.  i.  463.) 

It  was  fortunate,  therefore,  that  at  such  a  juncture  the 
Prince  was  in  a  position  to  step  more  or  less  into  the  position 
vacated  by  the  lamented  Melbourne.  Till  that  time  the 
Prince  had  not  been  present  at  Council  meetings,  and  had 
been  kept  in  the  political  background.  At  the  Prince's 
instigation  Lord  Melbourne,  in  taking  leave  of  the  Queen, 
intimated  to  her  that  the  Prince  was  his  natural  successor 
in  the  matter  of  counsel  and  advice  ;  repeating  in  writing 
his  high  opinion  of  the  Prince's  judgment,  temper,  and 
discretion,  and  strongly  urging  reliance  in  future  on  the 
Prince's  advice  in  the  place  of  his  own.  (ib.  i.  383,  385.) 
Thus  the  Prince  slipped  into  the  position  which  should  more 
correctly  have  been  Peel's,  and  happily  he  soon  found  in 
Peel  so  congenial  a  spirit  that  after  two  years  Greville  could 
write  on  November  25,  1843  :  "  The  Queen  cares  really  for 
no  one  but  her  husband.  The  Tories  have  fast  hold  of  him, 
and  through  him  of  her,  and  this  provokes  the  Whigs  to 
death."  (v.  216.)  So  all  luckily  came  right  in  cir- 
cumstances for  which  the  Constitution  had  made  no 
provision. 

From  that  time  the  Prince's  power  in  the  State  increased 
enormously,   and  a  distinctly  more  imperious   note  is  dis- 


Early  Victorian  Politics  183 

cernible  in  the  political  letters  inspired  or  composed  by  him 
for  the  Queen.  On  September  7,  1841,  Peel  was  bidden  to 
instruct  the  Lord  Chamberlain  to  be  "  very  particular  in 
always  naming  to  the  Queen  any  appointment  he  wished 
to  make  in  his  department,  and  always  to  take  her  pleasure 
upon  an  appointment  before  he  settled  on  them  ;  this  was  a 
point  on  which  the  Queen  had  always  laid  great  stress."  On 
September  9, 1841,  the  Prime  Minister  was  reproached  through 
Anson  for  not  having  informed  the  Queen  of  the  adjournment 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  but  having  left  her  to  see  it  first 
in  the  papers.  She  also  required  that  a  short  report  of  the 
debates  in  the  Commons  should  always  be  sent  to  her  from 
himself,  and  of  those  in  the  Lords  from  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton. {Letters,  i.  405.)  She  insisted  in  future  on  always  being 
informed  beforehand  of  any  proposed  political  appointment, 
so  that  she  might  discuss  it  fully  with  her  Ministers,  (ib. 
i.  406.) 

Early  in  1842  Peel  consented  to  apprise  the  Prince,  from 
time  to  time,  of  the  measures  contemplated  by  the  Govern- 
ment, and  to  give  in  detail  any  explanations  the  Queen 
desired,     (ib.  i.  479.) 

On  October  25,  1841,  the  following  extract  from  a  letter 
to  Peel  indicates  the  firmer  hand  :  "  The  Queen  saw  in  the 
papers  that  Lord  Stuart  de  Rothesay  is  already  gone.  The 
Queen  can  hardly  believe  this,  as  no  Ambassador  or  Minister 
ever  left  England  without  previously  asking  for  an  Audience 
and  receiving  one,  as  the  Queen  wishes  always  to  see  them 
before  they  repair  to  their  posts.  Would  Sir  Robert  be  so 
very  good  as  to  ask  Lord  Aberdeen  (Foreign  Secretary) 
whether  Lord  Stuart  de  Rothesay  is  gone  or  not,  and,  if  he 
should  be,  to  tell  Lord  Aberdeen  that  in  future  she  would 
wish  him  always  to  inform  her  when  they  intend  to  go, 
and  to  ask  for  an  Audience,  which,  if  the  Queen  is  well, 
she  would  always  grant."     (ib.  i.  442.) 

And  there  was  a  tendency  for  this  more  dominant 
attitude  of  the  Crown  to  extend  outside  its  rightful  pro- 
vince ;  as  shown  when  the  Queen  sent  to  Peel,  for  ap- 
proval, a  letter  to  Lord  Ellenborough  on  questions  affecting 
India,  to  which  Peel  replied  that  "  these  being  matters  of 
important   public    concern,    the   regular   and   constitutional 


184  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

channel  for  conveying  the  opinion  of  Your  Majesty  with 
respect  to  them  would  be  through  Your  Majesty's  servants." 
{Letters,  i.  629.) 

It  was  inevitable  that  the  Prince's  great  ability  and 
industry,  and  interest  in  politics,  should  make  him  more 
and  more  a  power  in  the  State,  though  constitutionally  he 
had  no  political  position.  But  the  steps  to  power  were  so 
gradual  as  to  be  almost  imperceptible ;  a  more  definite 
stage  being  reached  when  in  the  political  crisis  of  December 
1845  Lord  Lansdowne  and  Lord  John  Russell  on  their  visit 
to  Windsor  were  received  not  by  the  Queen  alone,  as  previously 
Ministers  had  been  received,  but  by  the  Prince  also  ;  the 
Royal  language  being  no  longer  "  I "  but  "  We"  so  that 
Greville  wrote  of  the  Prince,  "  He  is  King  to  all  intents  and 
purposes."     (v.  329,  330.) 

The  letters  that  passed  between  the  Queen  and  her  uncle 
lend  a  special  charm  of  humour  to  the  published  letters  of 
the  Queen.  But  they  did  not  pass  without  some  searchings 
of  heart ;  for  the  Queen  had  actually  to  assure  the  King 
that  their  letters  were  never  opened  at  the  Foreign  Office. 
Lord  Palmerston's  denial  of  such  a  thing  was  most  indignant, 
when  asked  by  the  Queen  about  it.  She  therefore  could 
write  :  "  My  letters  are  quite  safe,  and  all  those  to  Germany, 
which  are  of  any  real  consequence.  I  also  send  through 
Rothschild,  which  is  perfectly  safe  and  very  quick."  (June  6, 
1841,  Letters,  i.  364.)  It  was  as  if  the  Queen  had  been  an  alien 
in  her  own  country. 

But  obviously  such  letters  could  hardly  be  entirely  non- 
political.  The  uncle  could  not  fail  to  influence  his  niece. 
Some  months  before  her  accession  he  pressed  upon  her  "  the 
necessity  of  maintaining  the  influence  of  Conservative 
principles,  and  of  protecting  the  Church."  He  bade  her  to 
miss  no  opportunity  of  showing  her  sincere  feeling  for  the 
existing  Church,  (ib.  i.  94.)  She  could  not  say  too  much 
about  the  Church,  without  pledging  herself  to  anything 
in  particular,  (ib.  i.  102.)  And  before  she  decided  on 
anything  of  importance,  he  begged  her  to  consult  himself. 
(June  27,  1837,  ib.  i.  102.) 

All  this  was  sound  worldly  wisdom,  but  it  was  foreign 
influence,     Yet  the   Queen,   whilst   respecting  the   Church, 


Early  Victorian  Politics  185 

had  no  superstitious  regard  for  it.  When  Lord  Ashley's 
resolution  against  the  Sunday  delivery  of  letters  threatened 
to  become  law,  she  told  Lord  John  Russell  that  she  could 
consent  only  most  reluctantly  to  such  a  measure  :  she 
thought  it  "  a  very  false  notion  of  obeying  God's  will  to  do 
what  will  be  the  cause  of  much  annoyance  and  possibly  of 
great  distress  to  private  families."  (June  9,  1850,  ib. 
ii.  290.)  And  when  in  August  1854  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  wished  for  a  special  prayer  against  the  cholera, 
she  wrote  strongly  to  Lord  Aberdeen  against  it,  reminding 
him  that  in  1837  the  much  more  fatal  visitation  of  influenza 
had  been  accorded  no  such  prayer  for  its  removal.  (August  21 , 
1854,  ib.  iii.  51.) 

When  on  March  8,  1850,  the  Privy  Council  gave 
judgment,  much  to  the  indignation  of  the  High  Church 
party,  against  the  Bishop  of  Exeter,  who  had  refused  to 
institute  Mr.  Gorham  to  a  Crown  living  in  his  diocese 
on  account  of  his  heretical  views  about  baptism,  Lord 
Beaconsfield  remarked  in  a  letter  of  April  20  :  "  Gracious 
Majesty  much  excited,  and  clapped  her  hands  with  joy, 
when  the  critical  decision  of  the  Privy  Council  against 
the  Bishop  of  Exeter  was  announced  to  her."  {Life, 
iii.  248.) 

It  was  indeed  fortunate  that  for  sixty  years  the  throne 
was  occupied  by  a  Sovereign  so  singularly  free  from  religious 
bigotry  as  the  Queen.  Perhaps  something  of  this  was  due 
to  Stockmar,  who  in  his  memorandum  on  the  education  of 
the  Prince  of  Wales,  addressed  to  the  Royal  parents  on 
July  28,  1846,  gave  this  remarkable  advice  :  "  Above  all 
attainments  the  Prince  should  be  trained  to  freedom  of 
thought."  {Martin,  ii.  184.)  One  of  the  functions  of  royalty 
which  she  disliked  most  was  that  of  the  hand-kissing  of 
newly  appointed  bishops.  {Lee,  392.)  In  all  these  matters 
she  steered  the  course  of  the  golden  mean,  and  it  is  recorded 
that  Lady  Canning's  attempt  to  convert  her  to  High  Church 
views  roused  in  her  high  indignation.  She  agreed  with 
Palmerston  that  bishops  of  moderate  opinions,  "  not  leaning 
too  much  to  either  side,"  were  best ;  for  "  extreme  opinions 
lead  to  mischief  in  the  end,  and  produce  much  discord  in  the 
Church,  which  it  would  be  advisable  to  avoid,"     {Letters, 


1 86  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

iii.  288.)  She  avowed  herself  "  anxious  to  remove  any 
impression  of  the  Church  patronage  running  unduly  towards 
party  extremes."  (ib.  iii.  267.)  And  to  this  temperate 
line  she  was  consistent  throughout  ;  for  about  bishops  she 
wrote  to  Archbishop  Benson  in  1890,  that  "  the  men  to  be 
chosen  must  not  be  taken  with  reference  to  satisfying  one  or 
the  other  party  in  the  Church,  or  with  reference  to  any  political 
party,  but  for  their  real  worth.  We  want  people  who  can 
be  firm  and  conciliatory,  else  the  Church  cannot  be  main- 
tained. We  want  large  broad  views,  or  the  difficulties  will 
be  unsurmountable."  (Lee,  393.)  And  she  kept  firm  hold 
of  appointments,  often  insisting  on  other  arrangements  than 
those  proposed  by  her  Ministers,  as  when  in  1868  she  over- 
ruled Mr.  Disraeli's  wish  for  a  certain  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury by  appointing  Tait  to  that  position.  But  in  this 
matter  of  preferment  it  was  to  Dean  Wellesley  of  Windsor 
on  whose  judgment  she  almost  implicitly  relied  for  guid- 
ance. 

Till  the  Irish  Church  question  in  1868,  nothing  but  the 
Hampden  controversy  in  1847  seriously  roused  the  Queen's 
interest.  During  that  controversy  Greville  was  told  by  the 
Duke  of  Bedford  that  both  the  Queen  and  the  Prince  were 
in  a  state  of  hot  zeal,  and  that  the  Prince  wrote  daily  to  Lord 
John  Russell,  imploring  him  to  prosecute  Dean  Merewether : 
which  Lord  John  was  too  wise  to  do.  (vi.  118,  January  7, 
1848.) 

But  when  the  projected  Disestablishment  of  the  Irish 
Church  had  to  be  faced,  after  the  General  Election  of  1868 
had  returned  a  Parliament  with  that  intention  in  view,  the 
Queen  had  a  difficult  part  to  play.  She  disliked  Disestablish- 
ment as  much  as  her  grandfather  had  disliked  Catholic 
Emancipation  ;  she  might  have  based  her  opposition  on  her 
Coronation  Oath  ;  but  fortunately  she  played  a  wiser  part. 
Before  the  new  Parliament  of  1869  met,  she  wrote  Mr. 
Gladstone  a  letter  which  showed  "  much  disturbance." 
(February  4,  1869,  Morley's  Gladstone,  ii.  260.)  This  the 
Prime  Minister  did  his  best  to  soothe.  Then,  at  Bishop 
Magee's  instigation,  she  pleaded  for  the  intervention  of  the 
bench  of  English  bishops,  and  practically  made  her  pre- 
liminary consent  dependent  on  the  satisfaction  of  the  Arch- 


Early  Victorian  Politics  187 

bishop  of  Canterbury.  She  strove  to  postpone  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  measure  till  after  March  1,  to  allow  time  for 
consultation  with  the  Archbishop,  thinking  that  "  his 
position  and  character  made  it  only  right  that  such  a  measure 
should  not  be  introduced  without  an  opportunity  being 
afforded  to  him  of  forming  an  opinion  upon  it,  and 
communicating  that  opinion  to  the  Government."  (Fitz- 
maurice's  Granville,  ii.  7.) 

This  was  really  to  introduce  a  new  principle  into  legislation, 
and  to  transfer  to  the  Archbishop  a  sort  of  veto  over  Church 
legislation.  But  it  proved  a  happy  innovation  ;  for  Arch- 
bishop Tait  at  an  interview  found  Gladstone's  ideas  about 
the  Bill  so  much  more  in  harmony  with  his  own  than  he  had 
expected  that  his  opposition  was  disarmed.  And  when  the 
Bill,  after  passing  all  its  readings  in  the  Commons  during 
May,  came  before  the  Lords  in  June,  it  was  the  Queen's  letter 
of  June  4,  1869,  to  the  Archbishop,  urging  moderation  and 
the  passing  of  the  second  reading,  which  averted  a  collision 
between  the  Houses  ;  and  when  the  danger  of  such  collision 
reappeared  over  the  question  of  amendments,  and  the 
Archbishop  hinted  at  agitation  for  another  year  with  a  view 
to  making  better  terms  for  the  Irish  Church,  it  was  the 
Queen  who  put  before  him  the  wisdom  of  concessions  and 
the  possibility  of  further  agitation  resulting  in  worse  rather 
than  better  terms.  Even  so  the  collision  that  was  barely 
averted  was  "thanks  to  the  Queen,"  as  the  Archbishop 
said  ;  and  considering  that  the  Queen,  as  she  wrote  to  Mr. 
Gladstone,  never  concealed  how  deeply  she  deplored  the 
necessity  of  the  measure,  her  resignation  to  it  and  her  success- 
ful efforts  for  conciliation  must  ever  mark  the  episode  as  <  ne 
of  the  most  noteworthy  of  her  reign  and  most  creditable  to 
herself.     (Davidson's  Tait,  ii.  24,  35,  42.) 

This  constant  endeavour  on  the  part  of  the  Queen  to  oil 
the  wheels  of  the  political  machinery,  her  tact  in  smoothing 
differences,  her  neutrality  and  self-effacement  in  regard  to 
legislative  measures,  raised  the  Monarchy  from  the  perilous 
position  to  which  it  had  fallen  in  the  days  of  her  uncles,  and 
justified  her  in  writing  to  the  King  of  the  Belgians  on  January 
28,  1845  :  "The  feeling  of  loyalty  in  this  country  is  happily 
very  strong,  and  wherever  we  show  ourselves  we  are  most 


1 88  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

heartily  and  warmly  received."  As  an  instance  of  the 
loyalty  shown,  she  quotes  the  case  of  the  "  immensely  proud  " 
Duke  of  Buckingham,  who,  after  dinner,  himself  brought  to 
Prince  Albert  a  cup  of  coffee  on  a  waiter.  {Letters,  ii.  38.) 
Such  a  straw  showed  the  monarchical  direction  of  the 
wind. 

But  the  waters  were  frequently  troubled.  Parlia- 
ment was  apt  to  be  unruly,  and  the  cause  of  constant 
anxiety. 

"  The  House  of  Commons  is  becoming  very  unmanage- 
able and  troublesome,"  the  Queen  wrote  to  her  uncle  on 
July  2,  1850.  This  was  Lord  John  Russell's  Parliament,  of 
which  Greville,  describing  a  scene  on  June  23,  1848,  as  "to 
the  last  degree  deplorable  and  disgraceful,"  narrates  how 
the  members  "  roared  and  hooted  and  converted  the  House 
of  Commons  into  such  a  bear-garden  as  no  one  ever  saw 
before.  ...  It  was  grief  and  scandal  to  all  reasonable 
men."  (vi.  201.)  It  was  in  this  Parliament  that  the 
future  Lord  Beaconsfield  was  becoming  prominent,  of  whom 
Greville  said  that  his  capacity  was  so  great  that  he  could 
not  be  cast  aside,  and  his  character  so  disreputable  that  he 
could  not  be  trusted,  (vi.  53,  February  6,  1847.)  Nor  did 
Greville's  opinion  of  him  improve  as  time  went  on,  for  on 
February  25,  1850,  he  writes  of  him  as  having  "  nothing  but 
the  cleverness  of  an  acrobat.  Nobody  has  any  confidence 
in  him,  or  supposes  he  has  any  principles  whatever."  (vi. 
392.)  The  Queen's  favourite  aversions,  Greville  says, 
were  first  and  foremost  Palmerston,  and  Disraeli  next.  (ib. 
vi.  398.) 

Towards  the  end  of  1850  came  the  Papal  Aggression 
affair,  causing  a  religious  turmoil  that  might  have  been 
thought  long  since  impossible.  The  Queen,  while  sanctioning 
the  introduction  into  Parliament  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Titles 
Bill,  resented  strongly  the  "  unchristian  and  intolerant 
spirit  exhibited  by  many  people  at  the  public  meetings  "  : 
the  violent  abuse  of  the  Catholic  religion  she  could  not 
bear  to  hear.  (Letters,  ii.  336.)  It  was  this  apple  of  religious 
discord  that  in  February  1851,  on  the  defeat  of  the  Govern- 
ment, made  it  impossible  to  form  that  Coalition  Government, 
with  Lord  Palmerston  out  of  it,  for  which  the  Queen  had 


Early  Victorian  Politics  189 

longed.  "  Alas  !  the  hope  of  forming  a  strong  Coalition 
Government  has  failed — for  the  present,"  she  wrote  on  Febru- 
ary 25,  1851.  Statesmen  who  agreed  about  Papal  Aggression 
differed  about  Protection,  and  so  the  Coalition,  destined  un- 
fortunately to  come  into  existence  in  1852,  was  for  the 
moment  deferred. 

Lord  John  Russell,  called  at  one  time  "  Finality  John  " 
for  his  insistence  on  the  finality  of  the  Reform  Act  of  1832, 
became,  as  time  went  on,  the  most  strenuous  advocate  of 
further  experiments  in  the  enfranchisement  of  the  people. 
The  Queen  never  resisted  such  reform  as  her  uncle  William 
IV.  had  done,  but  she  hardly  disliked  it  less.  The  chief 
question  to  consider,  she  wrote  to  Lord  John  on  December  3, 
1851,  was  whether  the  strengthening  of  the  Democratic 
principle  would  upset  the  balance  of  the  Constitution,  and 
further  weaken  the  Executive,  which  was  by  no  means  too 
strong,  (ib.  ii.  403.)  When  the  drafts  of  the  proposed 
Reform  came  before  her,  she  expressed  herself  as  prepared 
to  approve  the  measure  on  the  strength  of  Lord  John's 
approval.  But  she  assumed  that  the  Bill  as  approved  by 
her  would  be  adhered  to  in  Parliament,  and  that  the  Prime 
Minister  would  not  allow  himself  to  be  drawn  on  to  further 
concessions  to  Democracy  in  the  course  of  the  debate, 
and  that  the  introduction  of  the  Ballot  would  be  vigorously 
opposed.  Wlien  a  few  days  later  she  received  the  draft  of 
Lord  John's  speech  on  the  Bill  she  declared  it  differed  so 
much  from  what  had  been  originally  submitted  to  her  that 
she  felt  she  ought  not  to  sanction  it  without  some  explana- 
tion of  the  alteration  :  a  fact  which  well  shows  how  close 
and  stringent  is  still  the  power  of  the  Crown  over  the  course 
of  legislation,     (ib.  ii.  437.) 

When  on  February  20,  1852,  a  coalition  between  the 
Protectionists  and  Lord  Palmerston  defeated  Lord  John 
Russell's  Militia  Bill,  thereby  bringing  Lord  Derby  into 
power,  the  Queen  described  the  new  Cabinet  as  "  a  very 
sorry  "  one.  (ib.  ii.  450.)  Greville,  though  a  Conservative, 
was  of  the  same  opinion  :  "  A  more  disgraceful  and  more 
degraded  Government  than  this  cannot  be  imagined,"  he 
wrote  on  July  7,  1852.  (vi.  456.)  He  complained  of  Lord 
Derby's   "  extreme  levity  and  incapacity  for  taking  grave 


190  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

and  serious  views,"  and  condemned  the  general  mistake  of 
thinking  him  high-minded  and  chivalrous,  arguing  that, 
as  he  was  not  so  in  turf  matters,  he  was  unlikely  to  be  so 
in  politics,  (vi.  456.)  When  at  the  end  of  the  same  year 
Lord  Derby's  Government  fell,  although  the  Elections  in 
July  had  resulted  in  great  Conservative  gains,  and  Lord 
Aberdeen's  Coalition  Government  took  its  place,  Greville 
wrote  of  the  Queen  as  "  delighted  to  have  got  rid  of  her  late 
Ministers  ;  she  felt,  as  everybody  else,  that  their  Govern- 
ment was  disgraced  by  its  shuffling  and  prevarication." 
She  declared  Harcourt's  pamphlet  on  the  Morality  of  Public 
Men  to  be  a  true  description,  and  "  as  she  is  very  honour- 
able and  true  herself,  it  was  natural  she  should  disapprove 
their  conduct."  (vii.  32.)  But  alas  for  the  vanity  of 
human  wishes !  "  The  success  of  our  excellent  Aberdeen's 
arduous  task  and  the  formation  of  so  brilliant  and  strong 
a  Cabinet  .  .  .  the  realisation  of  the  country's  and  our 
most  ardent  wishes,"  was  destined  to  result  in  the  Crimean 
War  ;  for  most  will  now  agree  with  the  belief  expressed  by 
Lord  Granville  on  February  19,  1887,  that  either  Palmerston 
alone  or  Aberdeen  alone  would  have  prevented  it.  (Fitz- 
maurice's  Granville,  i.  97.)  It  was  the  coalition  of  the  two 
different  temperaments  that  made  the  war. 

The  rule  of  our  Constitution  that  measures  can  only 
come  before  Parliament  with  the  consent  of  the  Crown, 
liable  though  such  consent  is  to  be  extorted  by  a  threat  of 
resignation,  has  always  proved  a  difficult  barrier  for  liberal 
legislation,  but  an  incident  in  1845  revealed  a  danger  to  free 
discussion  itself.  On  June  2,  when  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
moved  the  second  reading  of  the  Bill  to  increase  the  grant 
to  the  Catholic  College  of  Maynooth,  the  Duke  of  Newcastle, 
interrupting,  asked  him  whether  he  had  the  Queen's  leave 
to  propose  such  a  measure.  Whereupon  up  rose  Lord 
Brougham,  and  declared  that  he  would  not  sit  still  and  allow 
any  one  to  deny  the  Peers'  right  "  to  enter  into,  continue, 
and  close  any  discussion  of  any  nature  "  ;  the  leave  of  the 
Crown  was  only  necessary  in  measures  affecting  the  revenues 
and  patrimonial  interests  of  the  Crown.  Strange  that 
such  a  right  should  have  needed  assertion.  But  the  Queen 
was  no  enemy  to  the  measure  :    about  which  she  wrote  to 


Early  Victorian  Politics  191 

her  uncle  on  April  23,  1845,  that  "  the  Catholics  are  quite 
delighted  at  it — full  of  gratitude,  and  behave  extremely  well ; 
but  the  Protestants  behave  shockingly,  and  display  a  narrow- 
mindedness  and  want  of  sense  on  the  subject  of  religion 
which  is  quite  a  disgrace  to  the  nation."     (Letters,  ii.  43.) 


CHAPTER    III 

Queen  Victoria's  Foreign  Policy 

It  was  in  the  sphere  of  Foreign  Affairs  that  the  reign  of 
Queen  Victoria  was  of  most  interest  constitutionally,  because 
from  the  time  of  their  marriage  both  she  and  the  Prince  made 
this  their  special  province,  partly  in  consequence  of  the 
close  connection  of  both  of  them  with  Germany,  and  partly  in 
consequence  of  the  troubled  state  of  Europe  during  the 
Prince's  life  and  for  ten  years  beyond  it.  King  Leopold's 
advice  to  her  on  April  19,  1839  (Letters,  i.  193),  that  she 
"  ought  to  have  weight  and  influence  in  the  affairs  of  Europe," 
fell  on  willing  ears,  and  Greville's  remark  on  July  4,  1846, 
that  "  the  Queen  and  Prince  care  more  about  foreign  affairs 
than  anything  else  "  (v.  411),  was  true  of  her  whole  reign. 
So  late  as  1880,  when  the  General  Election  had  returned 
Gladstone  to  power  and  the  new  Prime  Minister  went 
nervously  to  his  audience  at  Windsor,  the  Queen  confined  her 
political  remarks  to  the  hope  that  there  would  be  no  great 
change  in  the  foreign  policy  of  the  country.  (Rumbold's 
Further  Recollections,  195.) 

The  Court  thus  came  to  claim  a  control  over  foreign  policy 
by  influence  or  advice  far  wider  than  the  three  preceding 
monarchs  had  ever  dreamt  of,  with  the  result  that  successive 
Foreign  Ministers  found  themselves  confronted  with  two 
responsibilities,  of  which  that  to  the  Crown  tended  to  over- 
ride that  to  Parliament,  and  to  bring  about  that  impotence 
of  Parliament  over  foreign  policy  which  has  now  reached  the 
stage  of  complete  paralysis.  Now  for  better,  now  for  worse, 
a  dual  and  often  conflicting  control  was  set  up,  and  whilst 
in  domestic  affairs  the  Court  bowed,  however  reluctantly, 
to  the  Cabinet,  in  foreign  affairs  its  claim  to  a  concurrent 
or  even  dominant  power  was  the  main  political  result  of  the 

Queen's  reign. 

192 


Queen  Victorias  Foreign  Policy         193 

The  wisdom  and  tact  displayed  in  the  Queen's  letters, 
their  high  international  moral  tone,  their  anxiety  to  avoid 
war  and  diminish  friction,  force  on  one  the  reflection  that 
the  judgment  of  an  able  man  like  the  Prince,  out  of  reach 
of  the  dust  of  the  party  arena,  must  often  have  been  of  great 
value  to  the  State.  But  his  judgment  in  1846  lacked  experi- 
ence. He  and  the  Queen  were  then  only  twenty-seven, 
whilst  experience  was  all  on  the  side  of  Lord  Palmerston, 
the  Foreign  Secretary,  who  was  then  sixty-two.  In  the 
frequent  conflicts  of  opinion  that  ensued  the  Minister  was  as 
likely  to  be  right  as  the  Sovereign,  and  his  sole  responsibility 
to  Parliament  and  the  country  should  have  carried  with  it 
an  almost  unfettered  decision. 

The  notion  that  foreign  policy  belongs  in  some  mysterious 
way  to  the  Royal  prerogative  is  a  survival  from  Tudor  or 
earlier  times,  and  on  the  Continent  is  still  the  most  prominent 
and  baneful  attribute  of  monarchy.  When  in  March  1855 
Lord  John  Russell  visited  Berlin,  in  the  vain  hope  of  enlisting 
Prussia  on  the  side  of  the  Allies  against  Russia,  he  found  that 
"  the  King  holds  in  his  hands  the  direction  of  the  whole  of 
the  foreign  policy  of  his  kingdom."  (Walpole's  Russell,  ii. 
248.)  And,  though  it  never  came  to  that  in  England,  the 
tendency  of  the  Queen's  influence  in  foreign  policy,  beneficial 
as  it  often  was,  inclined  in  that  direction  ;  such  policy  coming 
to  be  considered  by  her  as  something  which  concerned  only 
the  Court  and  the  Foreign  Minister,  and  in  which  Parliament 
hardly  counted  at  all.  % 

The  position  thus  assumed  by  the  Crown  is  all  the  more 
curious  from  its  contrast  with  the  restrictions  still  imposed 
on  the  Crown  in  unimportant  details.  In  theory  every  letter 
of  the  Crown  to  or  from  a  foreign  potentate  must  be  shown 
to  the  Foreign  Minister  or  Prime  Minister  of  the  day,  and  the 
Queen  and  Prince  always  complied  with  this  rule.  (Martin, 
iv.  329.)  It  seems  absurd  that,  when  the  sister  of  Louis 
Philippe  died  in  1848,  the  Queen  should  have  had  to  check 
her  natural  wish  to  write  the  King  a  letter  of  condolence  till 
she  had  received  the  consent  of  Lord  John  Russell.  (Letters, 
ii.  168-72.)  Lord  Palmerston's  leave  had  to  be  asked  and 
given  before  she  could  receive  in  London  a  visit  from  the 
exiled  Louis  Philippe  and  his  wife.  (March]  5,  1848,  ib. 
13 


194  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

ii.  192.)  Nor  might  she  receive  a  visit  at  Osborne  from  the 
Duke  and  Duchess  of  Nemours  till  Lord  John  Russell  had 
disclaimed  any  political  objection.     (Letters,  ii.  242.) 

In  a  very  different  key  was  pitched  the  tone  of  the  Court 
in  more  serious  foreign  relations,  as  the  Prince  came  to  feel 
his  seat  firmer  in  the  saddle.  The  clear  right  to  offer  advice 
shaded  by  degrees  into  a  claim  to  enforce  it  and  an  expecta- 
tion of  compliance  on  the  part  of  the  consulting  Minister. 
The  Court  claimed  the  right  of  ultimate  decision,  as,  for 
example,  in  the  following  words  from  the  Queen  to  Lord 
Clarendon  on  July  24,  1855  :  "  Having  read  the  whole  of 
these  documents,  she  confesses  that  she  requires  some  ex- 
planation as  to  the  advantages  which  are  to  arise  to  England 
from  the  proposed  Treaty,  before  she  can  come  to  any 
decision  about  it."     (ib.  iii.  169.) 

And  this  to  Lord  Cowley,  our  Ambassador  at  Paris,  on 
June  5, 1859,  indicates  the  position  that  was  asserted  by  the 
Crown  and  accepted  by  its  Ministers  :  "  The  Queen  has  read 
Lord  Cowley's  letter  with  regret.  Nothing  could  be  more 
dangerous  and  unwise  than  at  this  moment  to  enter  into 
negotiations  with  Russia  on  the  best  manner  of  disposing  of 
the  Emperor  of  Austria's  dominions.  The  Queen  cannot 
understand  how  Lord  Cowley  can  propose  anything  so  inde- 
fensible in  a  moral  point  of  view."     (ib.  iii.  435.) 

Stockmar's  influence  may  no  doubt  be  detected  in  this 
change  of  tone,  for,  though  he  thought  the  English  the  only 
sound  nation  in  Europe,  he  thought  us  in  foreign  affairs 
"  vain,  prejudiced,  arrogant,  awkward,  and  ignorant." 
(Lord  Granville  to  Lord  Canning,  December  2,  1856,  in  Fitz- 
maurice's  Lord  Granville,  i.  219.)  The  Prince  shared  his 
views,  telling  Lord  Granville,  after  sixteen  years  of  English 
politics,  that  the  fault  of  English  statesmen  was  their  lack 
of  philosophical  training  and  their  inability  to  look  at  a 
subject  as  a  whole  :  he  thought  the  Foreign  Office  under 
Lord  Clarendon  ("  always  most  eager  to  see  Lord  Palmerston 
moved,"  Letters,  ii.  309,  August  5,  1850)  the  only  one  that 
was  creditable  to  the  country.  (Fitzmaurice,  i.  140.)  But 
unless  this  opinion  was  well  concealed,  it  can  hardly  have 
been  pleasing  to  Palmerston. 

It  is  of  interest  to  examine  cursorily  how  this  claim  of  the 


Queen  Victorias  Foreign  Policy        195 

Crown  to  the  dominant  voice  over  foreign  affairs  worked  in 
practice  in  the  main  international  difficulties  that  troubled 
the  course  of  the  Victorian  reign.  The  storms  began  early. 
For  within  ten  years  of  the  Queen's  accession  and  within 
seven  of  her  marriage  there  occurred  three  good  chances  of 
war  with  France:  (1)  in  1840  in  connection  with  Mehemet 
Ali ;  (2)  in  1844  in  the  Tahitian  quarrel  ;  (3)  in  1846  over  the 
Spanish  Marriages  question. 

(1)  In  1840  our  joint  ultimatum  with  Russia,  Austria,  and 
Prussia  to  Mehemet  Ali  to  evacuate  North  Syria  greatly 
offended  France,  who  was  excluded  from  this  concert  of  the 
Powers.  Even  the  King  of  Belgium  thought  France  harshly 
treated  in  the  matter,  after  ten  years  of  good  behaviour. 
(Letters,  i.  289,  September  22,  1840.)  He  could  not  under- 
stand what  had  made  Palmerston  so  extremely  hostile  to  the 
King  and  Government  of  France  ;  a  little  civility  would  have 
gone  a  great  way  with  the  French.  .  .  .  But  Palmerston 
liked  to  put  his  foot  on  their  necks,  (ib.  i.  294,  October  2, 
1840.)  He  thought  France  ought  to  have  been  invited  to  be 
a  party  to  the  Convention  of  July  15  against  Mehemet.  The 
Queen  on  the  other  hand  thought  France  "  wrong,  and  quite 
in  the  wrong,"  for  she  had  seen  all  the  papers  and  knew  how 
France  was  engaged  to  act  with  us  and  then  refused  ;  still 
she  was  anxious  that  France  should  be  pacified.  The  question 
came  near  to  splitting  up  the  Cabinet,  owing  to  the  divergent 
views  of  Palmerston  and  Lord  John  Russell,  the  latter  being 
for  mutual  concessions  with  France,  and  prepared  to  break 
up  the  Government  rather  than  face  the  evils  and  hazards  of 
war.  (Greville,  iv.  323.)  Palmerston  held  all  the  time  that 
there  was  no  foundation  for  the  alarm  of  war,  that  the  French 
did  not  mean  war,  and  that  such  feeling  as  there  was  for  it 
in  France  had  been  produced  by  the  Ministry  and  their  organs 
in  the  Press.     (Letters,  i.  303.) 

Happily  Palmerston  proved  to  be  right.  On  October  11 
the  Queen  wrote  to  him  to  express  her  satisfaction  at  the 
return  of  amity  on  the  part  of  France,  and  her  hope  that  it 
would  be  met  in  a  very  friendly  spirit  by  Palmerston  and  the 
Government  ;  and  she  thought  some  return  should  be  made 
to  Louis  Philippe  for  his  pacific  efforts.  "  I  feel  we  owe 
much  of  the  change  of  the  conduct  of  France  to  the  peace- 


196  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

able  disposition  of  the  dear  King,"  she  wrote  to  her  uncle 
on  October  13.  The  King  of  France,  indeed,  must  have  the 
main  credit,  for  he  checked  Thiers'  warlike  preparations, 
dismissed  Thiers'  Ministry,  and  substituted  for  them  Soult 
and  Guizot,  who  were  all  for  peace  and  the  maintenance  of 
the  entente  cordiale.  But  the  Queen,  too,  had  her  share  in  it, 
describing  herself  on  October  16  as  "  having  worked  hard 
this  last  week  to  bring  about  something  conciliatory,"  and 
urging  her  uncle  to  persuade  the  French  King  to  cease  from 
arming.  This  he  did,  receiving  from  the  King  the  reply  that 
by  dint  of  great  exertion  he  had  made  Thiers  more  moderate 
about  armaments,  and  he  thanked  the  Queen  for  her  great 
zeal  on  behalf  of  peace,  a  work  he  deemed  "  of  the  greatest 
importance  for  everything  worth  caring  for  in  Europe." 
{Letters,  i.  307.) 

After  the  Allied  fleet  had  captured  St.  Jean  d'Acre  on 
November  3,  the  Queen  pressed  on  her  Foreign  Secretary 
the  importance  of  some  conciliatory  agreement  with  France  ; 
her  "  earnest  and  only  wish  was  peace,"  nor  did  she  think 
the  honour  and  dignity  of  the  country  would  be  compromised 
by  some  effort  to  soften  the  irritation  of  France.  France 
had  been  humbled,  and  was  in  the  wrong,  but,  therefore,  it 
was  easier  than  if  we  had  failed  to  do  something  to  bring 
matters  right  again,  (ib.  i.  314.)  In  all  this  we  see  monarchy 
at  its  best. 

(2)  In  1844  it  nearly  came  to  war  between  France  and 
England  on  the  Tahitian  question,  and  it  came  still  nearer  in 
consequence  of  certain  British  naval  officers  who,  having 
witnessed  the  bombardment  of  Tangiers  by  the  French,  in  a 
series  of  letters  to  the  Times  accused  the  French  Admiral  and 
Navy  of  deficiency  in  courage.  "  These  letters  in  the  Times 
are  outrageous,"  wrote  the  Queen,  in  just  indignation  on 
August  27,  1844.  By  September  15  the  trouble  was  settled, 
but  the  danger,  as  the  Queen  wrote  on  that  day,  had 
been  imminent.  "  Poor  Aberdeen  stood  almost  alone  in  try- 
ing to  keep  matters  peaceable."  (ib.  ii.  25.)  It  is  to  the 
eternal  honour  of  Lord  Aberdeen  on  the  one  side,  and  of 
Guizot  on  the  French  side,  that  the  entente  cordiale  they  had 
established  between  the  two  countries  did  not  break  down 
under  the  strain  of  hostile  feeling  caused  by  the  imprisonment 


Queen   Victorias  Foreign  Policy         197 

by  the  French  governor  of  Tahiti  of  Pritchard,  1  he  ex-mis- 
sionary and  ex-consul.  Louis  Philippe  had  to  pay  com- 
pensation from  his  own  Civil  List,  so  impossible  would  it 
have  been  to  have  got  it  from  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  and 
a  majority  in  the  English  Cabinet  advocated  measures  which, 
but  for  Aberdeen,  must  have  ended  in  war. 

Writing  to  Madame  de  Lieven  after  the  strife  was  over, 
Aberdeen  described  the  state  of  public  feeling  as  something 
inconceivable  :  "  I  saw  it  with  astonishment  and  regret,  but 
it  was  impossible  to  deny  that  persons  of  all  ranks  and  classes 
had  made  up  their  minds  to  war  ;  even  those  from  whom  it 
could  least  have  been  expected  "  (Stanmore's  Aberdeen,  158), 
and  it  is  almost  needless  to  add  that  the  Press  in  both 
countries,  as  Greville  wrote,  "  blew  the  coals  with  all  their 
might  and  main."     (v.  258.) 

The  Queen's  wise  thought  of  inviting  Louis  Philippe  to 
England  did  much  to  re-establish  the  peace  of  the  two 
countries  on  the  footing  of  personal  friendship  between  the 
Sovereigns. 

(3)  But,  unfortunately,  the  Spanish  marriage  dispute  in 
1846  rudely  interrupted  these  friendlier  relations.  In  1841 
there  had  been  an  attempt  in  Spain  in  favour  of  Queen 
Christina,  which  had  the  good  wishes  of  the  French  Govern- 
ment, and  thereby  caused  Queen  Victoria  to  complain  of 
French  jealousy  of  English  influence.  The  idea  of  the 
marriage  of  a  daughter  of  Spain  with  a  son  of  the  King  of 
France  was  thought  menacing  to  Europe,  and  on  December 
13,  1842,  the  Queen  wrote  to  her  uncle  a  letter  which  shows 
how  suspicion  and  mistrust  were  still  alive  :  "  The  news  from 
Spain  are  better,  but  I  must  own  frankly  to  you  that  we  are 
all  disgusted  at  the  French  intrigues  which  have  without  a 
doubt  been  at  the  bottom  of  it  all,  and  can,  I  fear,  be  traced 
very  close  to  the  Tuileries."  (Letters,  i.  558.)  The  question 
became  acute  in  July  1846,  in  which  month  Lord  John  Russell 
succeeded  Sir  Robert  Peel  as  Prime  Minister,  and  Lord 
Palmerston  succeeded  Lord  Aberdeen  as  Foreign  Minister. 
It  was  this  change  that  caused  the  trouble,  for,  had  Lord 
Aberdeen  remained,  there  seems  little  doubt  but  that,  by 
his  vigorous  control  of  Sir  H.  Bulwer  at  Madrid,  the  question 
would  have  been  settled  without  friction.     The  Queen  in  a 


198  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

letter  of  October  16,  1847,  to  Lord  John  complained  of  the 
"  gross  duplicity  and  immorality  "  shown  by  France  in  the 
matter,  and  entreated  him  personally  "  not  to  underrate  the 
importance  of  keeping  our  foreign  policy  beyond  reproach." 
{Letters,  ii.  156.)  But  later  revelations  show  that  the  Queen's 
complaint  of  French  diplomacy  was  really  unfounded,  since 
Lord  Stanmore  in  his  account  of  the  episode  in  his  Life  of 
Lord  Aberdeen  quite  exculpates  the  French  from  the  charges 
of  breach  of  faith  (162-73). 

It  was  thus  the  unsettled  state  of  Europe,  the  nervousness, 
and  discontent  in  all  countries  with  that  Settlement  of  Vienna 
in  1815  which  was  so  fondly  hoped  would  prove  durable,  that 
forced  foreign  politics  to  the  front  during  the  first  half  of 
the  Queen's  reign,  till,  in  fact,  the  exhaustion  consequent  on 
the  Franco-German  War  of  1870  brought  the  world  back  to 
a  restless  interlude  of  peace.  The  international  questions  at 
issue  were  of  greater  gravity  than  any  questions  of  domestic 
politics,  and  naturally  the  Court  or  the  Queen  took  a  greater 
interest  in  them. 

So,  as  time  went  on,  her  supervision  of  foreign  politics 
became  sterner,  as  shown  by  her  correspondence  with  Lord 
Palmerston  on  November  17,  1847.  When  the  Queen  pro- 
tested against  a  draft  which  seemed  to  pledge  us  beforehand 
to  a  line  of  policy  which  might  involve  the  question  of 
peace  or  war  under  future  and  uncertain  contingencies,  Lord 
Palmerston  replied  that  in  compliance  with  her  wishes  he 
had  omitted  the  whole  of  the  latter  part  of  the  dispatch. 
(ib.  ii.  160,  161.)  The  supervision  of  drafts  and  dispatches 
entailed  on  the  Queen  enormous  labour,  from  which  there 
was  no  shrinking.  When  the  Emperor  Napoleon  was  told  by 
the  Prince  that  every  foreign  dispatch  not  only  went  through 
the  Queen's  hands  but  was  read  by  her,  his  astonishment 
knew  no  bounds.  {Martin,  iii.  110.)  And  as,  according  to 
a  letter  from  Lord  John  Russell  to  the  Prince  of  June  19,  1849, 
as  many  as  28,000  dispatches  had  been  received  at  or  sent 
from  the  Foreign  Office  in  1848,  the  Emperor's  astonishment 
can  astonish  no  one  else. 

Lord  Malmesbury,  intimate  for  many  years  with  Louis 
Napoleon,  always  had  a  good  word  for  the  friend  of  his  early 
life,  and  reminded  English  readers,  after  the  Emperor's  fall, 


Queen  Victorias  Foreign  Policy        199 

of  his  constant  fidelity  to  the  British  alliance  ;  of  the  support 
he  had  given  to  us  in  the  Trent  affair  of  18G1,  when  war  with 
America  was  only  just  escaped  ;  and  of  his  allowing  our 
troops  a  passage  through  France  for  the  more  rapid  dealing 
with  the  Indian  Mutiny  in  1857.  But  the  Emperor  was  a 
most  disturbing  element  in  the  fifties  and  sixties  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  the  degree  of  trust  to  be  placed  in 
him  did  rnuch  to  divide  the  Queen  from  her  Ministers. 

The  Queen  never  trusted  him,  though  she  disclaimed  all 
personal  hostility  to  him,  and  thought  we  owed  him  much 
during  1849  and  1850  for  having  raised  the  French  Govern- 
ment from  the  mud.  {Letters,  ii.  435.)  She  thought  her 
uncle,  Leopold,  had  no  reason  for  alarm,  but  she  advised 
him  at  all  events  not  to  show  it.  She  told  him  on  February  17, 
1852,  that  she  was  very  glad  to  hear  that  he  was  quietly 
preparing  to  strengthen  himself  against  Napoleon,  as  she 
thought  that  would  put  him  on  his  good  behaviour.  But 
the  Belgian  king  became  increasingly  alarmed  as  time  went 
on,  so  that  when  he  died  on  December  9,  1865,  Lord  Malmes- 
bury  wrote  of  him  that  "  the  last  years  of  his  life  were  spent 
in  perpetual  terror  of  Louis  Napoleon,  and  he  was  constantly 
alarming  our  Ministers  and  everybody  on  the  subject." 
(Memoirs,  ii.  345.) 

Stockmar,  too,  inculcated  the  same  mistrust,  writing 
to  Lord  Granville  on  February  19,  1852,  that  Napoleon 
had  inherited  his  uncle's  system  in  foreign  affairs,  and 
would  be  driven  by  force  of  circumstance  to  follow  it. 
(Fitzmaurice's  Granville,  i.  59.)  Mistrust  is  a  plant  of 
easy  propagation,  and  doubtless  the  fears  of  Stockmar  and 
her  uncle  reacted  on  the  Queen,  who  wrote  to  Stockmar  on 
February  5,  1852,  that  "with  such  an  extraordinary  man 
as  Louis  Napoleon  one  can  never  be  for  one  instant  safe. 
It  makes  me  very  melancholy  ;  I  love  peace  and  quiet — 
in  fact,  I  hate  politics  and  turmoil,  and  I  grieve  to  think 
that  a  spark  may  plunge  us  into  the  midst  of  war.  Still 
I  think  that  may  be  avoided.  Any  attempt  on  Belgium 
would  be  casus  belli  for  us ;  that  you  may  rely  upon." 
(Letters,  ii.  438.) 

Yet  the  Queen  had  no  objection  to  a  closer  alliance  between 
Prussia  and  Belgium.     On  February  1,  1842,  she  wrote  to 


200  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

her  uncle  that  the  King  of  Prussia  was  very  anxious  for 
Belgium  to  become  USe  with  Germany,  and  she  added : 
"  I  think,  dearest  uncle,  that  it  would  be  for  the  real  good  of 
Belgium  if  it  could  be  so."  (Letters,  i.  475.)  Three  days 
later  he  replied  that  no  doubt  "  nothing  could  be  better 
than  to  link  this  country  (Belgium)  as  much  as  possible  to 
Germany.  The  public  feeling  was  and  is  still  favourable  to 
this,  but  in  Germany  three  years  ago  they  were  childishly 
ultra,  and  kicked  us  off  most  unnecessarily,  which  renders 
everything  of  the  sort  much  less  easy."  (ib.  i.  476.)  Yet 
the  neutrality  of  Belgium  had  been  guaranteed  by  the  Powers 
only  three  years  before. 

When  in  November  1852  it  was  a  question  of  the  French 
President  becoming  Emperor,  the  Queen  impressed  on 
Lord  Malmesbury  the  importance  of  non-committal  and  of 
informing  our  allies  that  we  should  not  join  with  them  in 
a  refusal  to  acknowledge  him.  "  Objectionable  as  this 
appellation  no  doubt  is,  it  may  hardly  be  worth  offending 
France  and  her  ruler  by  refusing  to  recognise  it,  .  .  .  any 
attempt  to  dictate  to  France  the  style  of  her  Ruler  would 
strengthen  Louis  Napoleon's  position  ;  our  object  should 
be  to  leave  France  alone,  as  long  as  she  is  not  aggressive." 
(ib.  ii.  482.)  And  one  of  the  great  merits  of  Lord  Derby's 
Government  was  his  ready  recognition  of  the  Second  Empire, 
in  contrast  to  the  hesitations  and  objections  of  the  other 
Powers.  The  Imperial  title,  assumed  on  December  2,  1852, 
was  officially  recognised  on  the  4th. 

But  the  Queen  fully  shared  the  nervousness  of  her  people, 
and  tried  to  impress  Lord  Derby  with  a  sense  of  "  our  de- 
fenceless state,"  and  with  the  necessity  of  a  large  outlay, 
"  to  protect  us  from  foreign  attack,  which  would  almost 
ensure  us  against  war."  (ib.  ii.  484,  November  13,  1852.) 
Not  even  Stockmar's  presentation  to  Napoleon  at  Strasburg 
and  his  decoration  with  the  Legion  oVhonneur  could  really 
reconcile  the  Queen  to  the  upstart  Emperor. 

But  the  Queen  always  tried  to  add  personal  intimacy  to 
the  frail  securities  of  the  world's  peace.  As  through  King 
Louis  Philippe,  so  through  Louis  Napoleon,  she  sought  to 
cement  the  entente  cordiale  with  France.  Accordingly, 
Napoleon  was  welcomed  at  Court  in  1855,  in  the  middle  of 


Queen   Victorias  Foreign  Policy        201 

the  Crimean  War,  and  the  Queen's  record  of  her  impressions 
of  him  remains  one  of  the  besl  descriptions  of  the  man 
who  so  mystified  his  generation,  (ib.  iii.  155-60.)  After  her 
return  visit  in  August  of  the  same  year  she  wrote  to  her 
uncle  :  "  I  have  formed  a  great  affection  for  the  Emperor, 
and  I  believe  it  is  very  reciprocal  "  (ib.  iii.  175)  ;  and  to 
Stockmar  :  "  For  the  Emperor  personally  I  have  conceived 
a  real  affection  and  friendship,  and  so  I  may  truly  say  of  the 
Prince."  (ib.  iii.  177.)  Standing  before  the  coffin  of  the 
first  Napoleon  by  torchlight  on  the  arm  of  Napoleon  III. 
she  felt  how  all  the  old  enmities  and  rivalries  had  been 
wiped  out.  And  when  she  heard  of  the  fall  of  Sebastopol,  she 
wrote  how  it  would  delight  "  my  brother  and  faithful  ally 
— and  friend,  Napoleon  III. — I  may  add,  for  we  really  are 
great  friends." 

But  the  vision  of  national  friendship  was  too  fair  to  last, 
and  so  speedily  did  the  horizon  cloud  over  after  the  Crimean 
War  that  we  find  Lord  Granville  writing  to  Lord  Canning 
on  November  24,  1856  :  "  The  detestation  felt  for  us  by 
all  classes  of  politicians  in  France  is  beyond  description  " 
(Fitzmaurice's  Granville,  i.  218) :  a  good  commentary  on  the 
value  and  vanity  of  all  such  military  alliances. 

A  qualified  friendship  with  France  and  a  closer  one  with 
Prussia  and  the  German  Powers  were  the  main  ideas  of  the 
Queen's  foreign  policy,  so  far  as  she  was  able  to  influence 
it.  The  ties  of  personal  relationship  and  the  tradition  of 
the  Napoleonic  Wars  made  the  Prussian  friendship  the  easier 
of  the  two,  and  later  events  throw  interest  on  the  fact  that 
in  the  year  1840  the  King  of  Prussia  sent  to  the  Duke  of 
Wellington,  through  Lord  William  Russell,  to  know  whether 
in  the  event  of  war  with  France  the  Duke  would  take  command 
of  the  forces  of  the  German  Confederation.  The  Duke  replied 
that  without  the  Queen's  consent  he  could  not  do  so,  but 
that  with  it  he  would  be  both  able  and  glad  to  lead  a  German 
army  against  France.  (Greville,  v.  34,  35,  55.)  When  the 
King  of  Prussia  landed  in  England  to  act  as  godfather  to 
the  Prince  of  Wales  on  January  24,  1841,  the  Duke,  dressed 
in  his  Prussian  Field-Marshal's  uniform  with  the  Black 
Eagle,  met  him,  and  the  King,  seizing  him  by  both  hands, 
exclaimed  :    "  My  dear  Duke,  I  am  rejoiced  to  see  you  ;   this 


202  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

is  indeed  a  great  day."  When  Parliament  met  on  February  5, 
the  Queen  drove  down  in  state  to  the  House  of  Lords  with 
the  King,  who  sat  on  a  chair  near  the  woolsack,  mightily 
pleased  with  his  reception  by  the  Queen  and  by  all  classes. 
And  when  he  left  the  country,  he  gave  snuff-boxes  of  five 
hundred  guineas  value  apiece  to  the  heads  of  the  Royal 
Household,  and  watches  to  others.     (Greville,  v.  78,  82.) 

These  happy  relations  were  improved  by  a  visit  to  the 
English  Court  of  the  Prince  of  Prussia  (later  the  first  Emperor 
William),  who  then  and  in  later  visits  in  1848,  1851,  1853, 
and  1856  established  an  intimate  friendship  with  the  Prince 
Consort  ;  though  it  should  be  noted  that  when  he  came  over 
in  March  1848  it  was  in  disguise  and  as  a  fugitive  for  his 
life  from  the  anger  of  Berlin.  (Letters,  ii.  208.)  But  his 
friendship  with  the  Prince  Consort,  to  use  the  words  of  Sir 
Theodore  Martin,  "  came  to  a  happy  climax  in  the  marriage 
by  which  the  reigning  families  of  Prussia  and  England  became 
united  in  1858,"  when  the  son  of  the  future  German  Emperor 
married  the  daughter  of  the  Queen  and  Prince  Albert,  so 
making  them  the  grandparents  of  the  future  German  Emperor 
William  II.     A  happy  climax  ?     Alas,  for  human  prescience  ! 

But  in  those  halcyon  days  there  was  no  ground  for 
political  jealousy.  Germany  was  only  just  beginning  to  feel 
her  limbs.  On  November  11,  1840,  Lord  Palmerston,  writing 
to  the  Queen,  spoke  of  a  German  feeling  and  spirit  of  nation- 
ality having  sprung  up  among  all  the  German  people,  who, 
instead  of  receiving  the  French  as  liberators,  as  many  of 
them  did  in  1792-93,  would  now  rise  as  one  man  to  repel  an  in- 
vasion, (ib.  i.  312.)  King  Frederick  William  IV.  was  almost 
abject  in  his  supplication  to  Queen  Victoria  that  in  the 
projected  Conference  for  the  settlement  of  the  Swiss  dispute 
in  1847  the  German  Confederation  "  should  appear  as  one 
of  the  great  Powers,  and  should  be  admitted  as  such  by 
the  other  great  Powers."  (ib.  ii.  163.)  To  which  the 
Queen  replied  that  much  as  she  "  would  like  to  see  Germany 
take  her  place  amongst  the  Powers  of  Europe,"  Germany 
could  not  so  take  part,  as  she  had  not  been  one  of  the  guar- 
anteeing Powers  of  Switzerland,  (ib.  ii.  164.)  And  on 
February  27,  1848,  when  revolution  was  again  afoot,  he 
adjured  the  Queen  "  on  both  knees."  and  falling  at  her  feet, 


Queen   Victoria  s  Foreign  Policy        203 

that  in  union  with  Germany  and  with  the  Emperors  of 
Austria  and  Russia  she  would  say  the  word  to  France  which 
would  restrain  her  from  war.     (ib.  ii.  178.) 

Already  German  expansion  was  in  the  air.  Greville, 
travelling  in  Germany  in  1843,  reported  a  great  wish  there 
for  colonies  and  a  navy  ;  Prussia  was  already  beginning  to 
build  warships,  (v.  184.)  Also  he  found  a  growing  desire 
on  the  part  of  the  smaller  States  to  form  a  nation  under 
Prussia  or  Austria.  In  1850  the  incorporation  of  the 
Schleswig-Holstein  Duchies  had  become  a  primary  object 
of  ambition,  as  securing  an  outlet  to  the  sea,  and  enabling 
Germany  to  realise  her  cherished  dream  of  one  day  becoming 
a  great  naval  Power.  So  the  Germans  viewed  with  extreme 
bitterness  the  combined  action  of  England  and  the  other 
maritime  Powers  to  defeat  this  deep-seated  and  very  natural 
ambition.     {Martin,  ii.  311.) 

The  Prince's  greatest  political  interest,  and  therefore  the 
Queen's,  was  the  political  development  of  Germany.  In 
1847  the  Prince  drew  up  a  memorandum  on  German  affairs 
for  the  instruction  of  the  King  of  Prussia,  which  Stockmar 
wisely  dissuaded  him  from  sending,  (ib.  i.  439.)  As  he 
wrote  to  Stockmar  on  September  11,  1850 :  "  Wherever  I 
am,  Germany  is  constantly  before  my  eyes  "  ;  adding  sadly 
that,  "  alas,  they  show  me  that  immorality  is  everywhere  in 
the  ascendant,  and  that  therefore  nothing  can  come  right." 
(ib.  ii.  323.)  He  thought  Germany  "to  be  going  utterly 
to  the  deuce  under  the  miserable  policy  of  its  rulers,  and 
to  be  becoming  a  still  readier  toy  for  the  next  revolution." 
(ib.  ii.  314.)  Again,  on  October  7,  1850  :  "  Of  German  politics 
I  dislike  to  speak  as  much  as  yourself.  The  vileness  or 
measureless  incapacity  of  those  who  hold  the  reins  of  govern- 
ment is  too  provoking."  (ib.  ii.  328.)  But  the  strength  of  his 
disapproval  was  the  measure  of  his  affection. 

And  the  strength  of  this  feeling  towards  Germany  is  the 
key  to  all  that  followed  in  connection  with  the  Queen's  foreign 
policy  through  the  difficult  years  of  the  first  half  of  her  reign ; 
it  is  the  key  also  to  her  troubles  with  successive  Foreign 
Ministers,  who  did  not  always  share  her  German  sympathies. 
The  revolutionary  troubles  in  Germany  in  1848  made  her 
"  quite  ashamed   about    that    once    really  so  peaceful  and 


204  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

happy  people."  {Letters,  ii.  237,  October  10,  1848.)  The 
idea  of  our  forcing  Austria  to  give  up  her  lawful  possessions 
in  Italy  she  denounced  as  "  really  quite  immoral  "  :  "it 
hurts  me  terribly."  But  she  disliked  Austria's  opposition 
to  the  hegemony  of  Prussia  in  Germany  ;  "  Austria  should 
behave  better,  and  not  oppose  the  consolidation  of  a  central 
Power,  else  I  know  not  what  is  to  become  of  poor  Germany." 
(ib.  ii.  256,  March  6,  1849.) 

King  Leopold  had  advised  her  on  April  19,  1839,  that  she 
"  ought  to  have  weight  and  influence  in  the  affairs  of 
Europe  "  (ib.  i.  193),  and  this  influence  she  always  endeavoured 
to  have,  and  to  use  it  beneficently.  It  was  her  strong  re- 
monstrance in  1863  that  deterred  Napoleon  from  his  schemes 
for  the  annexation  of  the  east  bank  of  the  Rhine,  and  to  her 
the  King  of  Prussia  ascribed  at  that  time  the  preservation 
of  Germany  from  a  French  invasion. 

To  promote,  so  far  as  in  her  lay,  the  strength  of  Prussia 
was,  for  the  Queen,  the  first  of  duties.  The  fear  that  Prussia 
might  be  excluded  from  a  German  Empire  under  the  hege- 
mony of  Austria,  to  the  detriment  of  the  interests  of  her  son- 
in-law,  the  Crown  Prince  of  Prussia,  filled  her  with  alarm  ; 
and  when  in  the  autumn  of  1863  she  visited  Coburg,  her 
letters  were  frequent  to  the  brother-in-law,  Duke  Ernest, 
then  attending  the  German  Diet  of  Sovereigns  at  Frankfurt, 
on  behalf  of  Prussia.  She  entreated  him,  as  much  as  lay 
in  his  power,  "  to  prevent  a  weakening  of  Prussia,  which  not 
only  my  own  feeling  resists — on  account  of  the  future  of  our 
children — but  which  would  surely  also  be  contrary  to  the 
interest  of  Germany  ;  and  I  know  that  our  dear  angel  Albert 
always  regarded  a  strong  Prussia  as  a  necessity,  for  which, 
therefore,  it  is  a  sacred  duty  for  me  to  work."     (Lee,  338.) 

So  when  again  in  1867  the  Emperor's  proposals  about 
Luxemburg  caused  the  war-cloud  to  arise,  it  was  again  the 
Queen's  appeal  to  the  Powers  for  the  peace  of  Europe  that 
led  to  the  Conference  in  London  which  averted  the  storm. 
(ib.  379.) 

In  the  other  Conferences  in  London  in  1864,  when  Prussia 
and  Austria  were  contending  with  Denmark  for  Schleswig- 
Holstein,  she  strove  personally,  though  in  vain,  for  mutual 
concessions  between  the  belligerents,     (ib.  350.)     And  when 


Queen  Victoria  s  Foreign  Policy        205 

the  final  settlement  of  the  conquered  Duchies  drove  Prussia 
and  Austria  into  war  in  1866,  she  pressed  on  her  Prime 
Minister  the  proposal  of  herself  as  mediator  to  the  King  of 
Prussia,  incurring  thereby  the  bitter  jealousy  of  Bismarck, 
who  resented  her  interference  and  complained  of  her  anti- 
Prussian  bias.     (ib.  366,  367.) 

When  the  great  storm  burst  in  1870,  the  Queen  strove  to 
avert  it  by  letters  to  the  principals  of  Prussia  and  France  ; 
and  though  her  sympathies  were  strong  for  Germany,  she 
entreated  the  influence  of  the  Crown  Princess  and  of  the  Queen 
of  Prussia  to  prevent  the  bombardment  of  Paris.  Had  her 
counsels  of  moderation  been  followed,  the  whole  train  of 
circumstances  which  resulted  in  the  war  of  1914  might  have 
been  averted.  Nothing  could  have  excelled  her  letter  of 
September  21,  1870,  to  the  King  of  Prussia  :  "  In  the  name  of 
our  friendship  and  in  the  interests  of  humanity,  I  express 
the  hope  that  you  may  be  able  so  to  shape  your  conditions 
of  peace  for  the  vanquished  that  they  may  be  able  to  accept 
them.  Your  name  will  stand  yet  higher  if,  at  the  head  of 
your  victorious  army,  you  now  resolve  to  make  peace  in 
a  generous  spirit."  (Fitzmaurice's  Granville,  ii.  45.)  On 
October  2,  1870,  she  telegraphed  to  the  King  of  Prussia, 
entreating  him  to  be  magnanimous  about  peace,  pressing 
her  Minister  to  offer  mediation,  not  only  for  stopping  the 
war,  but  for  modifying  the  vindictive  terms  insisted  on  by 
Germany.  (Lee,  406,  407.)  Forty  years  of  European  unrest, 
followed  by  a  desolating  war,  have  been  the  result  of  her 
failure  in  this  merciful  direction. 

Equally  admirable  and  more  successful  was  the  letter 
written  by  the  Queen,  at  Lord  Granville's  instigation,  in  1873, 
when  there  seemed  a  likelihood  of  a  renewed  attack  by 
Germany  upon  France.  She  appealed  directly  to  the  German 
Emperor  in  the  name  of  her  "  personal  devotion  to  him  and 
his  family,  her  devotion  to  Germany,  and  her  satisfaction 
that  by  means  of  his  glorious  victories  the  union  of  Germany 
had  been  effected,"  that  Germany  should  show  herself  "  as 
magnanimous  in  peace  as  she  was  invincible  in  war."  Though 
there  could  be  no  doubt,  she  said,  of  the  issue  of  a  second  war 
with  France,  "  it  was  not  clear  what  effect  another  great  war 
might  have  upon  some  of  the  most  dangerous  social  questions 


206  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

of  the  day,"  and  she  concluded  with  an  expression  of  con- 
fidence in  the  judgment  and  moderation  of  the  Emperor. 
{Fitzmaurice,  ii.  115,  116.)  And  again  in  1875,  on  the  occasion 
of  a  similar  renewal  of  the  menace  of  war,  she  directly  offered 
her  mediation  to  the  Emperor,  with  the  result  that  both  he 
and  Bismarck  were  vexed  by  her  interference,  and  disclaimed 
the  designs  imputed  to  them.     {Lee,  431,  432.) 

These  instances  show  how  much  may  be  done  for  the 
peace  of  the  world  by  a  constitutional  monarch  to  whom 
that  peace  is  a  sincere  object  of  desire.  But  that  peace  is 
liable  to  be  imperilled  should  the  monarch  fall  under  the 
influence  of  a  Minister  of  a  different  mind.  After  1874  the 
Queen  fell  completely  under  the  spell  of  Lord  Beaconsfield, 
who  wished  to  make  her  the  dictatress  of  Europe.  When  the 
Balkan  troubles  began  in  1876,  it  was  easy  to  revive  in  her 
the  old  idea  of  the  Prince  Consort's  time,  that  it  was  England's 
duty  to  protect  Turkey  against  Russia,  and  her  vexation 
was  limitless  at  Gladstone's  intervention  on  the  other  side. 
But  by  letters  to  the  Czar,  the  German  Emperor,  and  Bis- 
marck she  strove  to  prevent  the  calamity  of  war,  though 
Bismarck  persisted  in  believing  that  it  was  on  war  with 
Russia  that  her  heart  was  set.     (ib.  437.) 

After  the  Russo-Turkish  war  of  1877  had  ended  in  favour 
of  Russia,  the  Sultan  appealed  personally  to  the  Queen  to 
induce  the  Czar  to  accept  lenient  terms  of  peace  in  1878  ; 
nor  was  war  between  England  and  Russia  ever  more  im- 
minent than  when  that  between  Turkey  and  Russia  had  just 
ended.  Then  came  the  Berlin  Conference  to  settle  the  extent 
to  which  Russia  should  reap  the  fruits  of  victory ;  and  when 
Lord  Beaconsfield,  before  starting  for  Berlin,  told  the  Queen 
that  his  determination  to  prevent  Russia  from  obtaining 
territory  south  of  the  Danube  might  result  in  war,  he  met 
with  no  opposition  from  the  Queen,  and  the  preparations  for 
war  that  were  set  in  motion  enjoyed  her  full  approval. 
(ib.  440.)  So  completely  had  her  better  judgment  yielded  to 
Imperialism  under  the  skilful  guidance  of  her  almost  omni- 
potent Prime  Minister.  The  honour  of  averting  a  Russian 
war  at  that  time  belongs  more  to  Gladstone  than  to  the 
Queen,  who  never  forgave  him  for  his  attacks  on  Lord 
Beaconsfield  and  his  policy,  and  in  her  letters  invariably 


Queen  Victoria's  Foreign  Policy        207 

described  them  as  shameless  or  disgraceful,  (ib.  445.) 
But  the  Election  of  1880  was  the  nation's  answer  both  to  the 
Queen  and  her  Minister,  and  a  pacific  reaction  followed 
the  years  in  which  the  Court  identified  itself  heart  and  soul 
with  the  wild  ambitions  of  the  English  war  party. 


CHAPTER   IV 

The  Struggle  for  Foreign  Policy 

Lord  Palmerston's  tenure  of  the  Foreign  Office  in  Lord 
John  Russell's  Government  from  July  1846  to  his  dismissal 
in  December  1851  was  one  of  incessant  conflict  with  the 
Court.  There  was  some  truth,  doubtless,  in  the  Prince's 
complaint  to  Stockmar  on  September  2,  1847,  of  Palmer- 
ston's hobby  of  plunging  States  into  constitutional  reforms 
for  which  they  had  no  inclination  {Martin,  i.  426) ;  but  on 
the  whole  history  has  justified  his  policy. 

The  story  is  worth  telling  in  some  detail,  because  it 
shows  how  the  undefined  powers  of  the  Prime  Minister,  the 
Foreign  Minister,  and  the  Crown,  over  foreign  affairs  often 
clash,  and  how  insignificant  is  the  nation's  control  over 
matters  which  more  nearly  touch  its  interests  than  any 
others. 

Under  the  reign  of  the  Queen  and  the  Prince,  with 
Stockmar  behind  them,  the  claim  of  the  Crown  to  the 
dominant  control  of  foreign  policy  made  rapid  development, 
and  the  trouble  that  ensued  between  the  Court  and  Lord 
Palmerston  during  the  Russell  Ministry  resulted  from  a 
struggle  on  his  part  against  a  tendency  which,  if  successful, 
would  have  assimilated  our  monarchy  to  the  absolutist  mon- 
archies on  the  Continent.  That  the  Court  inclined  to  such 
assimilation  is  proved  by  the  Prince  Consort's  conversation 
with  Napoleon  at  Boulogne  in  1854,  when  he  explained  to 
him  how  Palmerston's  foreign  policy  had  been  an  exaggera- 
tion of  Canning's,  having  for  its  "  object  to  form  a  counter- 
poise to  the  Holy  Alliance  of  the  Continental  Governments, 
by  supporting  the  popular  parties  in  every  country,  with  a 
view  to  establishing  constitutions  after  the  model  of  our 
own.  This  was  a  doctrine  very  like  that  of  the  Jacobin 
propaganda,  and  produced  the  greatest  hatred  of  England 

308 


The  Struggle  for  Foreign  Policy        209 

all  over  the  Continent  "  ;  that  is,  in  the  Courts  of  Austria, 
Prussia,  and  Russia.  But  this  very  Continental  dislike  had 
procured  Palmerston  great  popularity  in  England,  and  he 
had  used  it  "  to  coerce  his  colleagues  and  his  Sovereign 
into  anything  he  chose  to  advocate."  With  this  main 
principle  of  Palmerston's  policy,  the  Queen  and  himself  had 
long  been  at  variance,  (ib.  iii.  112.)  This  fundamental 
difference  of  political  sympathy  is  the  key  to  the  whole 
period. 

As  Greville  points  out,  the  new  Whig  Ministry  of  184G 
found  the  Prince  in  a  very  different  position  from  that  in 
which  the  old  one  had  left  him  in  1841.  He  had  become 
more  prominent,  more  important,  and  had  an  increased 
authority  :  all  due  to  the  continual  attention  to  his  wishes 
and  the  Queen's  shown  by  Peel  and  Lord  Aberdeen,  (vi.  418.) 
Bitter  indeed  was  the  Queen's  regret  at  losing  such  pliant 
Ministers  as  these.  "  We  felt  so  safe  with  them,"  she 
wrote  to  her  uncle  on  July  7,  1846.  "  Never  during  the 
five  years  that  they  were  with  me  did  they  ever  recommend 
a  person  or  a  thing  which  was  not  for  my  or  the  country's 
best,  and  never  for  the  Party's  advantage  only  ;  and  the 
contrast  now  is  very  striking  ;  there  is  much  less  respect 
and  much  less  high  and  pure  feeling."  (Letters,  ii.  103.) 
The  Queen  never  pretended  to  the  impossible  virtue  of 
having  no  political  preferences,  and  in  a  letter  to  Lord  John 
Russell  on  July  16,  1846,  regretted  the  mistake  she  had  made 
in  consenting  to  a  dissolution  in  1841,  the  result  of  which 
had  been  "  a  majority  returned  against  her  of  nearly  one 
hundred  votes."     (ib.  ii.  108.) 

It  fell  to  Palmerston's  lot  to  make  a  stand  against  the 
enhanced  claims  of  the  Crown  to  the  control  of  foreign 
policy.  A  good  instance  of  this  claim  occurred  in  1853,  when 
Lord  Aberdeen's  Government  decided  to  send  the  fleet  to 
Turkish  waters.  The  Prince  was  highly  indignant,  writing 
on  October  10  :  "  Here  were  decisions  taken  by  the  Cabinet, 
perhaps  even  acted  upon,  involving  the  most  momentous 
consequences,  without  her  (the  Queen's)  previous  con- 
currence or  even  the  means  for  her  to  judge  of  the  pro- 
priety or  impropriety  of  the  course  to  be  adopted,  with 
evidence  that  the  Minister  in  whose  judgment  the  Queen 
14 


210  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

placed  her  chief  reliance  entirely  disapproved  of  it.  The 
position  was  morally  and  constitutionally  a  wrong  one. 
The  Queen  ought  to  have  the  whole  policy  in  spirit  and 
ultimate  tendency  developed  before  her  to  give  her  de- 
liberate sanction  to  it,  knowing  what  it  involved  her  in 
abroad  and  at  home.  .  .  .  Lord  Aberdeen  renounced  one 
of  his  chief  sources  of  strength  in  the  Cabinet  by  not  making 
it  apparent  that  he  requires  the  sanction  of  the  Crown  to 
the  course  proposed  by  the  Cabinet,  and  has  to  justify  the 
advice  by  argument  before  it  can  be  adopted,  and  that  it 
does  not  suffice  to  come  to  a  decision  at  the  table  of  the 
Cabinet."  {Letters,  ii.  553.)  But  if  this  doctrine  be  true, 
it  is  on  the  Crown  and  not  on  the  Cabinet  that  political 
responsibility  should  rest. 

Hardly  had  the  Russell  Government  started  than  the 
Spanish  Marriage  question  opened  a  breach  between  the 
Queen  and  her  new  Foreign  Minister.  For  the  coolness 
that  followed  between  France  and  England  the  Queen  threw 
the  chief  blame  on  Palmerston.  He  had  mismanaged  the 
matter,  she  told  her  uncle  on  September  14,  1846.  "  If 
our  dear  Aberdeen  was  still  at  his  post,  the  whole  thing 
would  not  have  happened "  ;  for,  though  Palmerston  had 
behaved  "  most  fairly  and  openly  towards  France,"  yet 
"  say  what  one  will,  it  is  he  again  who  indirectly  gets 
us  into  a  squabble  with  France  !  "  (ib.  ii.  122.)  And 
again :  "  No  doubt  if  Lord  Aberdeen  had  been  at  his 
post  what  has  happened  would  not  have  taken  place,  and 
suspicion  of  Lord  Palmerston  has  been  the  cause  of  the 
unjustifiable  conduct  of  the  French  Government."  (ib. 
ii.  125.) 

Then  followed  trouble  in  Portugal  in  the  November  of 
the  same  year.  On  the  28th  the  Queen  told  Palmerston 
that  she  did  "  not  quite  approve  of  the  tone  of  his  dispatch 
to  our  Secretary  of  Legation  at  Lisbon.  It  was  more  likely 
to  irritate  than  to  produce  any  effect.  It  must  give  the 
impression  that  we  espoused  the  cause  of  the  rebels.  She 
was  afraid  the  dispatch  had  gone  the  day  before,  and  she 
hoped  that  in  future  Lord  Palmerston  would  not  put  it 
out  of  her  power  to  state  her  opinion  in  good  time."  (ib. 
ii.  132.) 


The  Struggle  for  Foreign  Policy        2 1 1 

This  was  a  constant  grievance.  On  April  17,  1847,  the 
Queen  reminded  Lord  Palmerston  that  she  had  several 
times  asked  him,  through  the  Prime  Minister  and  person- 
ally, to  see  that  the  drafts  to  our  Foreign  Ministers  were  not 
dispatched  without  previous  submission  to  herself,  as  had 
happened  that  very  day  with  the  drafts  to  Lisbon  ;  and  she 
once  more  repeated  her  desire  that  Lord  Palmerston  should 
prevent  the  recurrence  of  the  practice,  (ib.  ii.  143.)  And 
on  October  9,  1847,  it  was  again  :  "  The  Queen  must  again 
observe  that  the  drafts  have  since  some  weeks  past  been 
sent  to  her  after  they  were  gone,  so  that  she  can  make  no 
remark  thereon."     (ib.  ii.  152.) 

It  was  at  this  period  that  Pope  Pio  Nono  had  begun  his 
efforts  on  behalf  of  reforms,  and  in  reply  to  a  letter  from 
Lord  John  Russell  informing  the  Queen  of  Palmerston's 
wish  to  send  Lord  Minto  to  Rome  on  a  mission  of  encourage- 
ment the  Queen  and  the  Prince  wrote  a  most  interesting 
statement  of  their  views.  They  were  anxious  for  Austria. 
That  country,  they  urged,  looked  on  the  progress  of  liberal 
institutions  and  constitutional  government  in  Italy  as  a 
matter  of  life  and  death  to  Austria,  who  would  oppose  them 
at  any  risk  and  with  all  her  might.  Such  a  mission  would 
be  "  a  most  hostile  step  towards  an  old  and  natural  ally  "  ; 
they  feared  it  would  lead  Austria  to  attack  Italy,  and  we 
ought  not  to  urge  the  Pope  to  defy  her,  but  should  disclaim 
to  Austria  any  intention  of  interference,  whilst  asserting 
the  right  of  every  State  to  self-government,  and  intimating 
that  we  should  not  view  with  indifference  any  armed  in- 
vasion to  prevent  it ;  "  this  step  ought  to  be  taken  as 
quickly  and  openly  as  possible  ;  "  the  bold  declaration  of 
England  for  the  right  of  independent  States  to  manage  their 
own  internal  affairs  would  make  England  most  popular  all 
over  the  Continent,  and  particularly  in  Germany.  (Martin, 
i.  428.)  Fortunately  Lord  John's  reply,  that  these  Royal 
views  exactly  coincided  with  his  own  and  Lord  Palmerston's, 
averted  trouble,  but  the  Crown's  claim  to  dictate  about 
foreign  affairs  struck  a  note  of  incipient  discord.  The  Queen, 
though  she  admitted  on  July  5,  1848,  that  she  had  approved 
of  Lord  Minto's  mission  at  the  time,  complained  to  Lord 
Palmerston  that  it   was  prejudicial   to  the  Austrians,  and 


212  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

imposed  on  England  additional  care  not  to  appear  as  the 
abettors  of  the  anti-Austrian  movement. 

In  March  1848  occurred  one  of  Lord  Palmerston's  most 
unfortunate  indiscretions.  In  a  dispatch  to  Sir  H.  Bulwer, 
our  Minister  at  Madrid,  he  directed  him  to  advise  the  Spanish 
Government  to  adopt  a  constitution,  and  to  urge  the  Queen 
of  Spain  to  call  to  her  councils  some  of  the  men  trusted  by 
the  Liberal  Party.  The  dispatch  was  not  intended  to  be 
shown  or  published,  but  as  it  was,  the  Spanish  Ministry 
naturally  took  it  as  "  offensive  to  the  dignity  of  a  free  and 
independent  nation  "  ;  the  dispatches  were  returned,  and  on 
May  19  Sir  H.  Bulwer  received  his  passports  and  was  ordered 
to  leave  Madrid  within  forty-eight  hours.  The  Spanish 
Minister  in  London  was  not  immediately  withdrawn,  but 
after  a  vain  attempt  to  explain  the  action  of  Spain  he  too 
received  his  passports  on  June  14,  and  diplomatic  relations 
between  the  two  countries  were  suspended.  (Greville,  vi. 
173,  187.) 

It  was  in  this  year  of  storm  and  stress  that  Greville  felt 
impelled  to  praise  "  the  extraordinary  good  sense  of  Prince 
Albert,"  whose  influence  over  the  Queen  he  described  as 
"  boundless."  (ib.  vi.  190.)  And  it  was  with  justice  that 
he  wrote,  on  March  25,  1848 :  "  In  the  midst  of  the  roar  of 
the  revolutionary  waters  that  are  deluging  the  whole  earth, 
it  is  grand  to  see  how  we  stand  erect  and  unscathed.  It  is 
the  finest  tribute  that  ever  has  been  paid  to  our  Constitution, 
the  greatest  test  that  has  ever  been  applied  to  it."  (ib.  vi.  159.) 

Yet  it  was  a  test  under  which  it  nearly  broke  ;  for  on 
almost  every  aspect  of  foreign  politics  the  Court  was  in  acute 
antagonism  with  Lord  John  Russell  and  Lord  Palmerston. 
The  claim  to  regard  foreign  politics  as  the  Crown's  special 
preserve  is  plainly  visible  through  all  their  correspondence. 

In  1848,  when  the  Milanese  rose  against  Radetzky,  the 
Austrian  Governor,  and  the  King  of  Sardinia  marched  to 
their  aid,  the  Queen's  Austrian  sympathies  were  clear  from 
the  first.  The  Treaties  of  1815  had  assigned  Lombardy  and 
Venetia  to  Austria,  and  she  was  justly  anxious  for  their 
observation.  The  Prime  Minister,  on  the  other  hand,  in 
a  memorandum  of  May  1,  1848,  advocated  our  conjoint 
attempt  with  France  to  procure  the  frank  abandonment  by 


The  St  niggle  for  Foreign  Policy        2 1 3 

Austria  of  Lombardy  and  Vcnetia,  with  such  compensa- 
tion to  France  on  the  side  of  Savoy  as  came  to  pass  in  1860. 
He  also  favoured  Lord  Palmerston's  sensible  idea  of  a  sale 
of  Venetia  by  Austria,  which,  if  consented  to  by  the  latter, 
would  have  saved  Europe  infinite  trouble  and  bloodshed. 
(Martin,  v.  271.) 

The  following  extracts  show  the  Queen's  feelings  with  great 
clearness  : 

"  The  Queen  returns  the  enclosed  draft.  She  has  written 
upon  it,  in  pencil,  a  passage  which  she  thinks  ought  to  be 
added,  if  the  draft — though  civil — is  not  to  be  a  mere  refusal 
to  do  anything  for  Austria,  and  a  recommendation  that 
whatever  the  Italians  ask  for  ought  to  be  given,  for  which 
a  mediation  is  hardly  necessary.  The  Queen  thinks  it  most 
important  that  we  should  try  to  mediate  and  put  a  stop  to 
the  war,  and  equally  important  that  the  boundary  which 
is  to  be  settled  should  be  such  a  one  as  to  make  a  recurrence 
of  hostilities  unlikely."     (Letters,  ii.  211.) 

"  Why  Charles  Albert  ought  to  get  any  additional  terri- 
tory the  Queen  cannot  in  the  least  see."     (ib.  ii.  207.) 

This  difference  on  the  leading  question  of  the  hour  natur- 
ally tended  to  affect  the  handling  of  all  other  questions. 

On  June  17,  1848,  the  Queen  again  complained  vigor- 
ously to  Lord  John  of  Palmerston's  system  of  diplomacy, 
which  made  the  taking  up  of  party  politics  in  foreign  countries 
its  principal  object.  That  system  was  condemned  by  herself, 
by  Lord  John,  by  the  Cabinet,  and,  she  believed,  by  public 
opinion.  Lord  Palmerston's  objection  to  caution  our 
Minister  in  Portugal  against  falling  into  this  fault  brought 
it  to  an  issue,  whether  this  erroneous  policy  was  to  be  main- 
tained in  the  future,  or  a  wiser  course  followed,     (ib.  ii.  213.) 

On  June  26,  1848,  she  sent  the  Prime  Minister  a  letter 
from  the  Foreign  Secretary,  with  the  complaint  that  "  no 
remonstrance  has  any  effect  with  Lord  Palmerston."  (ib. 
ii.  215.) 

When,  much  to  Palmerston's  satisfaction,  the  King  of 
Sardinia,  helped  by  Tuscany,  Naples,  and  Rome,  had  been 
successful  in  Lombardy,  she  wrote  to  him  on  July  1,  1848, 
that  "  she  cannot  conceal  from  him  that  she  is  ashamed 
of  the  policy  which  we  are  pursuing  in  this  Italian  contro- 


214  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

versy  in  abetting  wrong,  and  this  for  the  object  of  gaining 
influence  in  Italy."     {Letters,  ii.  215.) 

But  fortune  turned  against  the  Piedmontese,  and  Austria 
recovered  her  lost  ground.  In  vain  the  Italians  had  called 
on  France  for  help ;  for  General  Cavaignac  would  only 
combine  with  England  for  a  peaceful  mediation.  Lord 
Palmerston's  ideas  were  not  the  Queen's.  "  The  Queen 
quite  agrees,"  she  wrote  to  Lord  John  on  August  21,  1848, 
"  that  the  principal  consideration  always  to  be  kept  in  sight 
is  the  preservation  of  the  peace  of  Europe  ;  but  it  is  pre- 
cisely on  that  ground  that  she  regrets  that  the  terms  proposed 
by  Lord  Palmerston  .  .  .  are  almost  the  only  ones  which 
are  most  offensive  to  Austria."  It  would  be  a  calamity  for 
ages  to  come  if  this  principle  was  to  become  part  of  inter- 
national law,  "  '  that  a  people  could  at  any  time  transfer  their 
allegiance  from  the  Sovereign  of  one  State  to  that  of  another 
by  universal  suffrage,'  and  this  is  what  Lord  Normanby — 
no  doubt  according  to  Lord  Palmerston's  wishes — has  taken 
as  the  basis  of  the  mediation."     (ib.  ii.  227,  228.) 

No  wonder  that  the  Queen  under  all  these  difficulties 
described  herself  to  her  uncle  as  ready,  but  for  the  assist- 
ance of  Prince  Albert,  to  "  sink  under  the  troubles  and  annoy- 
ances and  degotits  of  her  very  difficult  position."  (ib.  ii.  228, 
August  29,  1848.)  The  Queen  had  no  special  liking  for 
politics.  She  said  of  herself,  that  much  as  she  interested 
herself  in  general  European  politics,  she  was  every  day  more 
convinced  that  "  we  women,  if  we  are  to  be  good  women, 
feminine  and  amiable  and  domestic,  are  not  fitted  to  reign." 
(ib.  ii.  444.)  Possibly  Lord  Palmerston  sometimes  thought 
the  same.  Again  she  wrote  on  February  3,  1852,  that 
"  we  women  are  not  made  for  governing — and  if  we  are 
good  women,  we  must  dislike  these  masculine  occupations." 
Whilst  Prince  Albert  grew  daily  fonder  and  fonder  of  politics 
and  business,  she  grew  daily  to  dislike  them  both  more 
and  more.  (ib.  ii.  438.)  She  complained  that  for  reading, 
in  which  she  delighted,  she  had  little  time.  Almost  her 
whole  lecture  was  absorbed  by  the  immense  quantity  of 
dispatches  she  had  to  read,  besides  having  much  to  write, 
and  "  a  little  leisure  time  to  rest."  (ib.  ii.  472.)  Hers  was 
no  enviable  position.     In  a  letter  to  her  uncle  of  December 


The  Struggle  for  Foreign  Policy        2 1 5 

20,  1801,  after  her  irreparable  loss,  she  alluded  with  pathos 
to  her  "  much-disliked  position,"  which  her  life  with  the 
Prince  had  alone  made  bearable,     (ib.  iii.  G03.) 

The  friction  continued.  On  September  2,  1848,  having 
read  in  the  papers  that  Austria  and  Sardinia  had  nearly 
settled  their  differences,  and  that  there  was  talk  of  a  joint 
French  and  British  naval  demonstration  in  the  Adriatic, 
she  wrote  to  Lord  Palmerston  that  she  thought  it  right  to 
inform  him  without  delay  that,  should  such  a  thing  be  thought 
of,  it  was  a  step  "  which  the  Queen  could  not  give  her  consent 
to  "  :  which  seems  to  dispose  of  the  fiction  that  such  steps 
lie  outside  the  province  of  the  Crown. 

On  reaching  town  she  was  surprised  by  the  news  that 
Austria  had  declined  our  mediation,  and  she  wrote  immedi- 
ately to  her  Foreign  Minister  to  reproach  him  for  having 
left  her  uninformed  of  so  important  an  event,  (ib.  ii.  229, 
September  4.) 

Annoyances  thickened.  On  the  same  day  she  wrote  to 
the  Prime  Minister  about  a  Palmerstonian  draft  :  "  Lord 
Palmerston  has  as  usual  pretended  not  to  have  had  time  to 
submit  the  draft  to  the  Queen  before  he  had  sent  it  off.  What 
the  Queen  has  long  suspected  and  often  warned  against  is  on 
the  point  of  happening,  viz.  Lord  Palmerston's  using  the 
new  entente  cordiale  for  the  purpose  of  wresting  from  Austria 
her  Italian  provinces  by  French  arms.  This  would  be  a 
most  iniquitous  proceeding.  .  .  .  Lord  John  will  not  fail  to 
observe  how  very  intemperate  the  whole  tone  of  Lord  Palmer- 
ston's language  is."     (ib.  ii.  230.) 

By  September  19,  1848,  things  had  come  to  a  sad  pass. 
The  Queen  told  the  Prime  Minister  that  she  felt  she  must 
speak  quite  openly  to  him  about  Lord  Palmerston  ;  she  felt 
she  could  hardly  go  on  with  him  ;  that  she  had  no  confidence 
in  him  ;  that  it  made  her  seriously  anxious  and  uneasy  for 
the  welfare  of  the  country  and  the  peace  of  Europe.  Palmer- 
ston it  was  who  had  been  responsible  for  the  Spanish  Marriage 
trouble,  and  for  the  harm  done  last  winter  in  Italy,  for  he  was 
"  distrusted  everywhere  abroad."  "  I  said  that  he  often 
endangered  the  honour  of  England  by  taking  a  very  prejudiced 
and  one-sided  view  of  a  question  .  .  .  that  his  writings 
were  always  as  bitter  as  gall  and  did  great  harm,  which  Lord 


216  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

John  entirely  assented  to,  and  that  I  often  felt  quite  ill  from 
anxiety."  So  she  wished  Lord  Clarendon  to  come  over  from 
Ireland  and  become  Foreign  Secretary,  and  Lord  Palmerston 
to  be  made  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland.  Lord  John  said 
what  he  could  for  his  peccant  Minister,  but  intimated  that 
the  change  proposed  would  perhaps  turn  Palmerston  against 
the  Government ;  and  the  interview  only  ended  with  his 
promise  to  bear  the  subject  in  mind.     {Letters,  ii.  231-3.) 

The  question  the  episode  raises  is  not  whether  the  Court 
or  Palmerston  were  right  in  their  views  and  sympathies,  but 
whether  such  divided  authority  at  the  fountain-head  of 
foreign  policy  is  conducive  to  the  best  interests  of  the  State. 

On  October  7,  1848,  the  Queen  sent  the  Prime  Minister 
an  answer  she  had  received  from  Lord  Palmerston :  "  The 
partiality  of  Lord  Palmerston  in  this  Italian  question  really 
surpasses  all  conception,  and  makes  the  Queen  very  uneasy 
on  account  of  the  character  and  honour  of  England,  and  on 
account  of  the  danger  to  which  the  peace  of  Europe  will  be 
exposed."  She  protested  against  his  anti-Austrian  bias  in 
the  war,  which  had  ended  favourably  for  Austria  :  it  was 
"  really  not  safe  to  settle  such  important  matters  without 
principle  and  by  personal  passion  alone."     (ib.  ii.  235.) 

"  What  a  very  bad  figure  we  cut  in  this  mediation,"  she 
wrote  to  her  uncle  on  October  10,  1848.  "  Really  it  is  quite 
immoral  .  .  .  for  us  to  force  Austria  to  give  up  her  lawful 
possessions.  ...  It  hurts  me  terribly."     (ib.  ii.  237.) 

The  same  opposition  manifested  itself  in  all  directions. 
Palmerston  was  anxious  to  conciliate  the  new  French  Govern- 
ment. But  the  Queen  did  not  always  follow  his  motives. 
Thus  she  wrote  on  October  8,  1848  :  "  The  Queen  cannot 
refrain  from  telling  Lord  Palmerston  what  a  painful  im- 
pression the  perusal  of  a  draft  of  his  to  Lord  Normanby 
referring  to  the  affairs  of  Greece  has  made  upon  her,  being  so 
little  in  accordance  with  the  calm  dignity  she  likes  to  see  in 
all  the  proceedings  of  the  British  Government  ;  she  was 
particularly  struck  by  the  language  in  which  Lord  Palmerston 
speaks  of  King  Otho,  a  Sovereign  with  whom  she  stands  in 
friendly  relations,  and  the  asperity  against  the  Government 
of  the  King  of  the  French,  who  is  really  sufficiently  lowered 
and  suffering  for  the   mistakes   he  may   have  committed, 


The  St  niggle  for  Foreign  Policy        2 1 7 

and  that  of  all  this  a  copy  is  to  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  f  he 
Foreign  Minister  of  the  French  Republic  the  Queen  can  only 
see  with  much  regret."  Lord  Palmerston's  answer  was  that 
these  remarks  about  the  two  kings  lay  at  the  root  of  his 
argument,  and  were  adopted  for  the  conciliation  of  the  new 
French  Government,  (ib.  ii.  237.)  But,  desirable  as  such 
conciliation  was,  it  seems  an  odd  way  to  have  sought  it. 

At  the  end  of  the  year,  on  December  22,  1848,  the  Queen 
complained  to  Lord  John  Russell  that  neither  Lord  Palmcr- 
ston  nor  Lord  Normanby  had  shown  a  proper  regard  for  her 
wishes  and  opinion.  "  The  Queen  has  already,  on  Lord 
Palmerston's  account,  received  two  public  affronts  :  the 
one  by  her  Minister  in  Spain  having  been  sent  out  of  that 
country  ;  the  other  now,  by  the  new  Emperor  of  Austria 
not  announcing  to  her  by  special  mission  his  accession  to  the 
throne,  which  he  did  to  all  other  Sovereigns,  avowedly,  as 
it  appears,  to  mark  the  indignation  of  Austria  at  the  inimical 
proceedings  of  the  British  Foreign  Secretary."  (ib.  ii.  246.) 
And  on  such  a  note  ended  for  that  eventful  year  that 
flagrant  disagreement  between  the  Queen  and  her  Foreign 
Secretary  which  was  destined  again  so  seriously  to  perplex 
our  politics  in  1859  and  1860. 

Nor  did  matters  improve  with  the  new  year,  1849,  when 
the  Cabinet  learned  for  the  first  time  that  in  the  previous 
September  Palmerston  had  sanctioned  the  removal  of  guns 
from  the  Government  stores  for  the  use  of  the  Sicilian  in- 
surgents against  the  King  of  Naples.  Lord  John  was  much 
incensed,  and  reverted  to  the  idea  of  moving  Palmerston 
from  the  Foreign  Office  to  Ireland.  But  he  told  the  Queen 
that,  as  he  had  always  approved  of  Palmerston's  foreign 
policy,  he  could  only  offer  the  exchange  if  accompanied  by  a 
simultaneous  offer  of  an  English  earldom,  or  of  an  English 
barony  without  the  Garter.  The  Queen  replied  the  same  day 
that  she  was  "  deeply  grieved,"  "  as  the  honour  of  her 
Government  had  always  been  nearest  to  her  heart.  She 
feels  deeply  the  humiliation  to  have  to  make  an  apology  to 
the  Government  of  Naples,  which  stands  so  very  low  in 
public  estimation,  and  she  naturally  dreads  the  effect  this 
disclosure  about  the  guns  will  have  in  the  world,  when  she 
considers  how  many  accusations  have  been  brought  against 


2t8  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

the  good  faith  of  this  country  latterly  by  many  different 
Governments."  She  expressed  a  wish  to  see  Lord  John  about 
the  removal  to  Ireland,  but  wished  such  removal  to  be  so 
managed  "  as  to  reflect  the  least  possible  discredit  upon  the 
Government  and  upon  Lord  Palmerston  himself."  {Letters, 
ii.  251.)  Happily,  Lord  Palmerston's  unexpected  readiness  to 
apologise  to  the  injured  Neapolitan  Government  smoothed 
matters  for  the  time. 

In  the  summer  of  this  year,  when  the  Piedmontese  renewed 
war  with  Austria,  the  French  answered  the  success  of  Austria 
by  occupying  Roman  territory  ;  Lord  Palmerston  addressing 
several  reproaches  to  Austria,  whilst  the  Queen's  sympathies 
remained  enlisted  on  the  Austrian  side. 

The  Court  gained  a  point  in  its  struggle  with  Palmerston 
by  an  agreement  that  he  should  send  dispatches  in  the  first 
instance  to  the  Prime  Minister,  if  the  Queen  so  wished.  Lord 
John  was  to  concur  in  them  before  their  submission  to  the 
Queen,^and  in  case  of  material  alteration  to  acquaint  the 
Queen  with  his  views  and  submit  his  reasons.  Prince  Albert 
replied  that  this  would  be  satisfactory,  and  that  in  future 
the  Queen  would  make  any  remarks  she  pleased  to  the  Prime 
Minister,  not  to  the  Foreign  Secretary.  She  only  wished  not 
to  be  pressed  for  an  answer  within  a  few  minutes,  as  some- 
times had  been  the  case.  (ib.  ii.  263.)  Lord  Palmerston 
thus  waived  his  right  as  Foreign  Secretary  of  taking  the 
Queen's  pleasure  directly  on  the  affairs  of  his  department. 
(Walpole's  Russell,  ii.  53.) 

In  connection  with  the  Don  Pacifico  affair,  which  began 
in  November  1849,  the  Queen  in  February  1850  returned  a 
draft  intended  for  the  British  envoy  at  Athens  with  the  wish 
expressed  that  it  should  be  altered  in  accordance  with  Lord 
John's  views  ;  and  on  hearing  that  it  had  been  sent  unaltered, 
she  wrote  on  February  17  to  Lord  Palmerston  :  "  The  Queen 
must  remark  upon  this  sort  of  proceeding,  of  which  this  is 
not  the  first  instance,  and  plainly  tell  Lord  Palmerston  that 
this  must  not  happen  again.  Lord  Palmerston  has  a  perfect 
right  to  state  to  the  Queen  his  reasons  for  disagreeing  with 
her  views,  and  will  always  have  found  her  ready  to  listen  to 
his  reasons  ;  but  she  cannot  allow  a  servant  of  the  Crown 
and  her  Minister  to  act  contrary  to  her  orders,   and  this 


The  Struggle  for  Foreign  Policy        2 1 9 

without  her  knowledge."  (Letters,  ii.  277.)  Although  the 
Minister's  answer  completely  cleared  him  of  the  charge 
imputed  to  him,  things  were  evidently  nearly  at  bursting 
point.  For  Lord  Clarendon  a  few  days  later  told  Greville 
how  the  moment  he  entered  the  room  to  dine  at  the  Palace 
"  the  Queen  exploded  and  went  with  the  utmost  vehemence 
and  bitterness  into  the  whole  of  Palmerston's  conduct,"  and 
how  the  Prince  the  next  day  talked  to  him  for  two  and  a  half 
hours  on  the  subject,  pouring  forth  "  without  stint  or  reserve 
all  the  pent-up  indignation,  resentment,  and  bitterness  with 
which  the  Queen  and  himself  had  been  boiling  for  so  long 
a  time  past."  (vi.  324.)  The  Prince  complained  of  the 
humiliation  of  the  Queen  before  the  world  arising  from  the 
remonstrances  and  complaints  of  other  Sovereigns  ;  declared 
that  Palmerston  was  suffered  to  set  at  defiance  the  Sovereign, 
the  Government,  and  public  opinion,  and  that  no  redress  was 
obtainable  from  the  Prime  Minister.  Minutes,  he  said,  were 
submitted  to  the  Queen  in  one  form  and  changed  by  Palmer- 
ston into  another ;  Austria,  unable  to  do  business  with 
Palmerston,  refused  to  send  an  ambassador  to  England. 
As  for  himself,  he  had  ceased  to  try  to  influence  Palmerston  ; 
"  for  above  a  year  past  neither  the  Queen  nor  he  had  ever 
said  one  word  to  him."     (vi.  324.) 

The  Prince's  dislike  for  Palmerston  was  notorious,  and 
when  in  December  1853  Lord  Palmerston's  disagreement 
with  Lord  John  Russell's  then  projected  reform  measure  led 
to  his  brief  resignation,  the  Prince  wrote  to  Stockmar  :  "  The 
great  Liberal  braggart,  who  wanted  to  press  free  institutions 
on  every  country,  finds  the  reform  measure,  which  Aberdeen 
approves,  too  liberal.  What  mischief  that  man  has  done 
us  !  "     {Fortnightly,  lxxv.  434.) 

On  March  2,  1850,  the  Court  had  a  special  interview  with 
Lord  John  on  the  subject.  The  Prime  Minister,  despite  his 
anxiety  not  to  break  up  the  Whig  Party,  yet  admitted  that  the 
Queen's  distrust  of  Lord  Palmerston  was  "  a  serious  impedi- 
ment to  the  carrying  on  of  the  Government."  Lord  Palmer- 
ston had  told  him  that  he  could  not  but  be  aware  that  he  had 
forfeited  the  Queen's  confidence,  and  appeared  willing  to  give 
up  the  Foreign  Office  in  exchange  for  the  leadership  in  the 
Commons,  if  Lord  John  were  moved  to  the  House  of  Lords. 


220  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

The  Prince  then  said  that  the  Foreign  Office  could  only  be 
held  by  Lord  John  himself  or  by  Lord  Clarendon.  "  On  the 
Queen's  inquiry  why  Lord  Clarendon  had  not  been  proposed 
for  it,  Lord  John  expressed  his  anxiety  that  no  change  in 
the  Ministry  should  alter  the  general  line  of  policy,  which  he 
conceived  to  have  been  quite  right,  and  that  Lord  Clarendon 
did  not  approve  of  it  ;  somehow  or  other  he  never  could  agree 
with  Lord  Clarendon  on  Foreign  Affairs  ;  he  thought  Lord 
Clarendon  very  anti-French  and  for  an  alliance  with  Austria 
and  Russia."  (Letters,  ii.  279-82.)  Though  nothing  came 
of  these  proposals,  they  show  how  painful  had  become  the 
difference  between  the  anti-French  Court  and  the  pro-French 
Foreign  Minister. 

Lord  Palmerston's  neglect  to  notify  to  our  Minister  at 
Athens  the  settlement  of  the  Greek  difficulty  between  himself 
and  the  French  ambassador  led  to  the  renewal  of  reprisals 
and  the  submission  of  the  Greeks.  The  French  were  so 
indignant  that  they  recalled  their  ambassador,  deeming  it 
"  incompatible  with  the  dignity  of  the  Republic  to  have  any 
longer  an  ambassador  in  London."  (Greville,  vi.  338.)  In 
Greville's  view,  this  was  the  "  greatest  scrape  into  which 
Palmerston  had  ever  got,"  our  Government  being  charged 
with  breach  of  faith  and  the  violation  of  a  compact,  (ib.  vi. 
339.)  Prince  Albert  wrote  to  Lord  John  that  both  the  Queen 
and  himself  were  "  exceedingly  sorry  at  the  news,"  adding 
caustically,  "  We  are  not  surprised,  however,  that  Lord 
Palmerston's  mode  of  doing  business  should  not  be  borne  by 
a  susceptible  French  Government  with  the  same  good  humour 
and  forbearance  as  by  his  colleagues."  (Walpole's  Russell, 
ii.  59,  May  15,  1850.)  The  Queen  was  much  vexed,  though 
she  deprecated  Lord  John's  proposal  for  a  resignation  of  the 
T.iinistry,  and  was  content  that  there  should  be  a  change  in 
the  Foreign  Office  at  the  end  of  the  session.  The  Lords 
carried  a  hostile  motion  against  the  Government  over  the 
Greek  affair,  but  this  was  cancelled  by  the  triumphant  carry- 
ing in  the  Commons  of  Mr.  Roebuck's  motion  in  approval  of 
Palmerston's  policy  :  whereby  that  Minister's  power  and 
popularity  increased  a  hundredfold.  So  far  the  victory  was 
with  him. 

The  following  from  a  letter  by  the  Queen  to  Lord  John 


The  Struggle  for  Foreign  Policy        221 

on  April  14,  1850,  in  reference  to  the  selection  of  a  Minister 
for  Madrid,  reveals  the  tension  that  existed  :  "  Lord  Palmer- 
ston's  conduct  in  this  Spanish  question  in  not  communicating 
her  letter  to  Lord  John  is  really  too  bad,  and  most  disrespect- 
ful to  the  Queen  ;  she  can  really  hardly  communicate  with 
him  any  more  ;  indeed,  it  would  be  better  that  she  should 
not."     (Letters,  ii.  285.) 

The  Prime  Minister  had  little  rest  from  such  letters.  On 
May  18  came  one  from  the  Prince,  complaining  that  his  own 
conviction  and  the  Queen's  grew  stronger  and  stronger  that 
Lord  Palmerston  was  bringing  the  hatred  borne  to  him  per- 
sonally by  all  the  Governments  of  Europe  upon  England,  and 
that  the  country  ran  in  serious  danger  of  the  consequences. 
Lord  John  agreed  that  the  Queen  ought  not  to  be  exposed  to 
the  enmity  of  Austria,  France,  and  Russia  on  account  of  her 
Minister.  But  though  offering  to  resign  himself,  he  remained 
staunch  to  his  offending  colleague.  He  declared  it  quite 
impossible  to  abandon  Palmerston  on  the  Greek  question, 
and  pronounced  the  Cabinet  and  himself  as  equally  to  blame, 
as  they  had  all  consented  to  the  measures  pursued.  He 
objected  to  the  suggestion  of  Lord  Clarendon's  taking  his 
place  on  the  ground  of  that  statesman's  close  connection 
with  the  Times,  and  the  violent  pro- Austrian  line  taken  by 
that  paper,     (ib.  ii.  288-9.) 

Meanwhile  Lord  Palmerston  regarded  himself  as  the 
victim  of  a  great  conspiracy,  from  which  his  triumphant 
acquittal  by  the  House  of  Commons  had  delivered  him. 
He  complained  especially  of  Lord  Clarendon,  of  Mr.  Greville, 
of  Mr.  Reeve  and  of  their  attacks  upon  him  in  the  Times, 
and  expressed  his  resolution  not  to  resign,  unless  so  requested 
by  the  Queen  or  the  Cabinet.  To  do  so  would  be  to  lower 
his  public  character  for  no  purpose,     (ib.  ii.  313-4.) 

But  at  last  the  Court  could  stand  it  no  longer,  and  on 
August  12,  1850,  the  thunderbolt  fell.  It  had  been  prepared 
by  Stockmar  on  March  12,  and  took  the  form  of  a  letter 
to  Lord  John  which  left  nothing  to  be  desired  on  the  score  of 
lucidity  :  "  With  reference  to  the  conversation  about  Lord 
Palmerston  which  the  Queen  had  with  Lord  John  Russell 
the  other  day,  and  Lord  Palmerston's  disavowal  that  he 
ever  intended  any  disrespect  to  her  by  the  various  neglects 


222  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

of  which  she  has  had  so  long  and  so  often  to  complain,  she 
thinks  it  right,  in  order  to  prevent  any  mistake  for  the  future, 
shortly  to  explain  what  it  is  she  expects  from  her  Foreign 
Secretary.  She  requires  (1)  that  he  will  distinctly  state 
what  he  proposes  in  a  given  case,  in  order  that  the  Queen 
may  know  as  distinctly  as  possible  to  what  she  has  given 
her  Royal  sanction  ;  (2)  having  once  given  her  sanction  to 
a  measure,  that  it  be  not  arbitrarily  altered  or  modified  by 
the  Minister  ;  such  an  act  she  must  consider  as  failing  in 
sincerity  towards  the  Crown,  and  justly  to  be  visited  by 
the  exercise  of  her  Constitutional  right  of  dismissing  that 
Minister.  She  expects  to  be  kept  informed  of  what  passes 
between  him  and  the  Foreign  Ministers  before  important 
decisions  are  taken,  based  upon  that  intercourse  ;  to  receive 
the  Foreign  dispatches  in  good  time,  and  to  have  the  drafts 
for  her  approval  sent  to  her  in  sufficient  time  to  make  herself 
acquainted  with  their  contents  before  they  must  be  sent  off. 
The  Queen  thinks  it  best  that  Lord  John  Russell  should 
show  this  letter  to  Lord  Palmerston."     (Letters,  ii.  315.) 

Instead  of  resigning,  Lord  Palmerston  wrote  next  day 
to  Lord  John  to  promise  compliance  with  the  Queen's  wishes. 
But  how  deeply  he  felt  the  humiliation  was  manifest  in  an 
interview  on  August  15  with  the  Prince,  who  described 
him  as  "  very  much  agitated."  He  "  shook,  had  tears  in 
his  eyes,  so  as  quite  to  move  me."  He  justly  argued  that 
the  charge  of  having  failed  in  respect  to  the  Queen  was  an 
imputation  on  his  honour  as  a  gentleman,  and  that  if  he  were 
guilty  he  was  no  longer  fit  to  be  tolerated  in  Society.  (Martin, 
ii.  307.)  The  Prince  told  him  that  the  Queen  had  received 
from  him  of  late  years  several  blows  "  such  as  no  Sovereign 
of  England  had  before  been  obliged  to  put  up  with,  and 
which  had  been  most  painful  to  her." 

But  the  situation  did  not  improve.  In  October  the 
Haynau  incident  occurred  :  the  General,  who  had  been 
notorious  for  his  cruelties  in  the  Hungarian  War,  having  to 
flee  from  the  rude  attentions  of  a  London  mob.  Palmerston 
in  his  apology  to  the  Austrian  Ambassador  had  appended 
a  remonstrance  on  the  General's  visit  having  been  made 
at  so  inopportune  a  moment.  The  Queen  on  October  12 
strongly  rebuked  him  for  adding  this  personal  censure,  and 


The  Struggle  for  Foreign  Policy        223 

told  him  that  she  could  as  little  approve  of  the  introduction 
of  lynch  law  into  the  country  as  of  the  violent  vituperation 
with  which  Lord  Palmerston  accused  and  condemned  public 
men  in  other  countries,  acting  in  difficult  circumstances, 
on  insufficient  information  and  evidence.     (Letters,  ii.  319-22.) 

The  Prince  had  complained  to  Palmerston  that  his  policy 
had  almost  invariably  differed  from  the  Queen's  (Martin, 
ii.  308),  and  it  was  impossible  to  bridge  over  the  difference. 
The  complaint  implied  the  necessary  acquiescence  of  the 
Foreign  Secretary  and  of  Parliament  in  the  wishes  of  the 
Crown  in  foreign  affairs.  The  rival  claims  had  reached  a 
deadlock.  "  Unfortunately,"  wrote  the  Queen  to  her  uncle 
on  December  3,  1850,  "  Lord  Palmerston  has  contrived  to 
make  us  so  hated  by  all  parties  abroad  that  we  have  lost  our 
position  and  our  influence,  which  .  .  .  ought  to  have  been 
immense.  This  it  is  which  pains  and  grieves  me  so  deeply, 
and  which  I  have  been  so  plainly  speaking  to  Lord  John 
Russell  about.  What  a  noble  position  we  might  have  had, 
and  how  wantonly  has  it  been  thrown  away."  (Letters, 
ii.  333.)  This  no  doubt  was  the  Stockmarian  view,  but  it 
was  not  that  either  of  the  Prime  Minister  or  of  Parliament. 

The  Court  and  the  Foreign  Minister  were  in  fact  at  conflict 
at  nearly  every  point,  especially  in  relation  to  German  affairs. 
And  English  Liberal  opinion  was  strongly  on  Palmerston's 
side.  Greville  mentions  how  Lord  Beauvale  praised  Palmer- 
ston for  having  acted  "  a  very  proper  and  spirited  part," 
having  had  to  "  fight  against  the  violent  and  inveterate 
prejudices  of  the  Court  "  as  well  as  of  some  in  the  Cabinet, 
(vi.  379.)  Lord  Aberdeen,  meeting  Greville  at  Balmoral  in 
September  1849,  excepted  from  his  general  approval  of  the 
Prince's  politics  his  "  violent  and  incorrigible  German 
unionism.  He  goes  all  lengths  with  Prussia  ;  will  not  hear 
of  the  moderate  plan  of  a  species  of  federalism  based  on  the 
Treaty  of  Vienna  and  the  old  relations  of  Germany  ;  and 
insists  on  a  new  German  Empire  with  the  King  of  Prussia  at 
its  head."  (ib.  v.  305.)  His  dream  came  true  in  1871,  but 
more  recent  events  seem  rather  to  have  justified  Palmerston's 
attitude. 

In  February  1851  the  sky  lightened,  a  Ministerial  crisis 
affording  the  Court  a  new  hope  of  an  escape  from  Palmerston. 


224  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Lord  John,  defeated  by  48  on  Mr.  Locke  King's  motion 
for  the  extension  of  the  franchise  to  the  counties,  tendered 
his  resignation,  and  negotiations  began  which  revealed  a 
state  of  political  anarchy.  The  questions  of  Protection,  of 
Reform,  and  of  Papal  Aggression  divided  parties  hopelessly. 
In  vain  the  Prince  strove  for  a  Coalition,  with  the  Papal 
question  left  open.  The  situation  was  only  saved  by  the 
Duke  of  Wellington's  advising  the  Queen  to  send  for  Lord 
John  again,  and  so,  as  Greville  says,  he  came  back  "  with 
his  whole  crew  and  without  any  change  whatever."  (vi.  392.) 
And  this  meant  Palmerston  back  in  his  old  place. 

"  Alas  !  "  wrote  the  Queen  to  her  uncle  on  February  25, 
"  the  hope  of  forming  a  strong  Coalition  Government  has 
failed — for  the  present"  In  vain  she  tried  to  rid  herself 
of  Palmerston  in  the  new  Cabinet.  On  March  2  she  re- 
iterated her  objections  to  Lord  Palmerston,  and  received 
from  Lord  John  the  renewed  promise  that  her  wishes  should 
be  attended  to.  (Letters,  ii.  376.)  The  next  day  she  "  re- 
minded Lord  John  of  her  objections  to  Lord  Palmerston, 
and  his  promise  that  Lord  Palmerston  should  not  again  be 
thrust  upon  her  as  Foreign  Secretary.  Lord  John  admitted 
to  the  promise,  but  said  he  could  not  think  for  a  moment  of 
resuming  office,  and  either  expel  Lord  Palmerston  or  quarrel 
with  him.  .  .  .  On  the  Queen's  reiterating  that  she  wanted 
to  keep  Lord  John  and  get  rid  of  Lord  Palmerston  .  .  . 
Lord  John  promised  to  move  Lord  Palmerston  in  the  Easter 
recess,  or  to  resign  himself  if  he  should  meet  with  difficulties." 
(ib.  ii.  377.)  "  I  have  been  speaking  very  strongly  about  Lord 
Palmerston  to  Lord  John,"  wrote  the  Queen  to  King  Leopold 
on  March  4,  "  and  he  has  promised  that  if  the  Government 
should  still  be  in  at  Easter  to  make  a  change." 

But  the  promise  could  not  be  kept ;  for,  as  Lord  John 
wrote  to  the  Prince  on  March  14,  "  I  cannot  undertake  to 
make  any  change  in  the  Foreign  Office.  Our  party  is  hardly 
united,  and  any  break  into  sections,  following  one  man  or 
the  other,  would  be  fatal  to  us.  I  need  not  say  that  the 
Queen  would  suffer  if  it  were  attributed  to  her  desire,  and 
as  I  have  no  difference  on  Foreign  Policy,  that  could  not 
fail  to  be  the  case."  As  usual,  he  added  his  willingness  to 
resign,     (ib.  ii.  381.) 


The  Struggle  for  Foreign  Policy        225 

So  matters  went  on  fairly  well  till  October  1851,  when 
the  famous  Hungarian  patriot  Kossuth  came  to  the  country. 
The  Queen  promptly  wrote  to  Lord  John  to  try  to  prevent 
Lord  Palmerston  from  receiving  him.  Else,  she  said,  she 
would  have  again  to  submit  "  to  insults  and  affronts,  which 
are  the  results  of  Lord  Palmerston's  conduct."  (ib.  ii. 
392.) 

Lord  John  accordingly  wrote  to  Palmerston  "  posi- 
tively," requesting  him  not  to  receive  Kossuth  at  the  Foreign 
Office.  To  which  Palmerston's  reply  was  :  "  There  are 
limits  to  all  things.  I  do  not  choose  to  be  dictated  to  as  to 
who  I  may  or  may  not  receive  in  my  own  house  ;  and  I  shall 
use  my  own  discretion  in  the  matter.  You  will,  of  course, 
use  yours  as  to  the  composition  of  your  Government.  I 
have  not  detained  your  messenger  five  minutes."  (Walpole's 
Russell,  ii.  133,  October  30,  1851.) 

The  Queen  wrote  next  day  to  her  Prime  Minister  that 
though  he  might  go  on  with  a  colleague,  even  after  such  an 
answer  as  Lord  Palmerston's,  she  could  not  "  expose  herself 
to  having  her  positive  commands  disobeyed  by  one  of  her 
public  servants,"  and  that  should  Lord  Palmerston  persist 
in  his  intention,  he  could  not  continue  as  her  Minister. 
(Letters,  ii.  393.)  To  Lord  Palmerston  himself  she  wrote  to 
say  that  his  reception  of  Kossuth  at  his  official  or  private 
residence  could  make  no  difference  as  to  the  public  nature 
of  an  act  liable  to  offend  her  Allies,  Austria  and  Russia. 
"  The  Queen  must  therefore  demand  that  the  reception  of 
M.  Kossuth  by  Lord  Palmerston  should  not  take  place." 
Lord  John  had  himself  recommended  this  "command" 
as  a  last  resource,  but  had  later  in  the  same  day  advised 
against  it,  and  promised  a  Cabinet  meeting  on  the  subject. 
The  Queen  was  only  too  thankful,  "  without  her  personal 
intervention,"  thus  to  be  protected  by  the  Cabinet  from  the 
wilful  indiscretions  of  Lord  Palmerston,  and  the  incident 
closed  with  Lord  Palmerston's  submission  to  the  Cabinet's 
support  of  the  Premier's  conduct.  But  the  end  was  not  far 
off,  an  end  destined  to  have  far-reaching  and  disastrous 
consequences. 

No  sooner  had  Kossuth  left  the  country  than  public 
opinion  broke  out  in  gratitude  to  Palmerston  for  his  conduct 
15 


226  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

towards    him.     Greville    described    the    Queen    as    "  vastly 
displeased  "  at  a  demonstration  at  Manchester,  where  he  had 
been  received  with  as  much  enthusiasm  as  herself,     (vi.  423.) 
At  the  Foreign  Office  itself  Lord  Palmerston  received  a  de- 
putation from  Finsbury  and  Islington,  to  which  he  expressed 
his  own  sympathy  and  that  of  the  country  with  the  Hun- 
garian   cause,    without    protesting    against    the    terms    of 
"  odious  and  detestable  assassins  "  with  which  their  address 
had  stigmatised  the  Emperors  of  Austria  and  Russia.    Greville 
thought  this  conduct  "  on  the  whole  the  worst  thing  Palmer- 
ston had  ever  done  "  (vi.  423) ;  and  the  Queen  thought  so  too. 
She  wrote  to  Lord  John  that  she  was  "  deeply  wounded,"  and 
implied  that  she  only  submitted  out  of  consideration  for  the 
life  of  the  Cabinet.     {Letters,  ii.  397.)     The  Prime  Minister, 
in  an  admirable  attempt  to  steer  straight  between  the  Queen 
and  her  Minister,  recalled  the  many  instances  on  which  the 
latter   had   yielded   to    remonstrance ;     reminded   her   that 
Palmerston  had  been  Foreign  Minister  from  1830  to  1834  and 
again  from  1835  to  1841,  and  so  for  fifteen  years  represented 
Whig  Foreign  Policy  with  the  approval  of   a  large  portion 
of  the  country,  and  argued  that  some  of  the  good  opinion 
of  the  offended  Emperors  was  a  fair  price  to  pay  for  the 
retention  of    the   goodwill  of    the    English  people,     {ib.  ii. 
398,   November  21,   1851.)     The   Queen  in  reply  expressed 
the  hope  that  the  Cabinet  would  make  that  careful  inquiry 
into  the  justice  of  her  complaint  which  she  was  sorry  to 
miss  altogether  in  Lord  John's  answer  ;   argued  fairly  that  it 
was  not  a  question  of  whether  she  pleased  the  Emperor  of 
Austria  or  not,  but  whether  she  gave  him  a  just  cause  of 
complaint ;   and  she  declared  that  she  had  every  reason  to 
believe  that   Palmerston   had   seen    Kossuth   after  all.     {ib. 
ii.  400.)     And  on  November  28,  1851,  Palmerston  apologised 
through  Lord  John  for  the  grave  annoyance  he  had  caused 
the  Queen.     The  struggle  was  nearing  an  end. 

It  came  a  few  weeks  later,  when  Napoleon's  coup  d'etat 
startled  the  world.  Though  Lord  Normanby  in  Paris  was 
ordered  to  identify  the  country  with  absolute  neutrality, 
Palmerston  in  conversation  with  Walewski,  the  French 
Ambassador,  frankly  expressed  approval  of  Napoleon's 
action.     The  Queen  was  highly  indignant,  writing  to  Lord 


The  Struggle  for  Foreign  Policy        227 

John  on  December  13  that  she  could  not  believe  the  truth 
of  the  story.  She  would  have  pressed  for  his  instant  dis- 
missal, had  not  Stockmar  "  very  wisely  advised  her  to  do 
nothing,  but  to  wait  for  Lord  John  Russell's  coming  to  her, 
as  he  did,"  and  himself  advised  Palmerston's  dismissal. 
(Grcvillc,  vi.  443.)  This  time  Lord  John  thought  himself 
"  compelled  to  write  to  Lord  Palmerston  in  the  most  decisive 
terms,"  and  on  December  19  he  advised  the  Queen  to  make 
a  change,  and  suggested  Lord  Granville  as  the  best  successor. 
The  Queen  accordingly  accepted  the  resignation,  but  with 
respect  to  a  successor  felt  obliged  to  state  "  that  after  the 
sad  experience  which  she  had  just  had  of  the  difficulties, 
annoyances,  and  dangers  to  which  the  Sovereign  is  exposed 
by  the  personal  character  and  qualities  of  the  Secretary  for 
Foreign  Affairs,  she  must  reserve  to  herself  the  unfettered 
right  to  approve  or  disapprove  the  choice  of  a  Minister  for  the 
Office."  And  thus,  by  a  word,  passed  to  the  Crown  the  real 
control  of  the  nation's  destinies  in  its  relation  to  foreign 
countries  :  the  Prime  Minister's  advice  was  to  cease  to  count 
in  the  matter.  The  Queen  and  Prince  had  an  audience  with 
Lord  John  on  December  23,  and  when  Lord  John  gave  it 
as  the  opinion  of  the  whole  Cabinet  that  the  Foreign  Office 
should  first  be  offered  to  Lord  Clarendon,  she  protested  that 
the  appointment  did  not  rest  with  the  Cabinet,  but  with 
herself  and  the  Prime  Minister,  who  could  only  construct  his 
Government  with  her  approval.  Subject  to  that,  it  was  at 
her  desire  that  Lord  Clarendon  had  the  first  offer,  and  on  his 
refusal  Lord  Granville  was  appointed,  and  so  continued  till 
on  the  change  of  Government  in  1852  Lord  Malmesbury 
became  Foreign  Secretary. 

The  relief  to  the  Queen  was  infinite  at  this  successful 
termination  of  the  five  years'  straggle.  On  December  23  she 
wrote  to  her  uncle  :  "  I  have  the  greatest  pleasure  in  announc- 
ing to  you  a  piece  of  news  which  I  know  will  give  you  as  much 
satisfaction  as  it  does  to  us,  and  will  do  to  the  whole  of  the 
world.  Lord  Palmerston  is  no  longer  Foreign  Secretary — 
and  Lord  Granville  is  already  named  his  successor  ! !  He 
had  become  of  late  really  quite  reckless."     (Letters,  ii.  417.) 

The  real  philosophy  of  this  famous  episode  was  that  given 
by  the  Prince  to  Napoleon  at  Boulogne  in  1854.     About  the 


228  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

conversation  with  Walewski  "the  Queen  asked  for  an  ex- 
planation from  Lord  John  Russell,  then  Prime  Minister,  who, 
after  having  had  to  wait  several  days,  received  at  last  so  rude 
an  answer  that  he  had  to  send  Lord  Palmerston  his  dis- 
missal. This  rendered  it  impossible  for  the  Queen  to  have 
him  again  for  Foreign  Secretary.  But  the  Queen  and  myself 
had  long  been  at  variance  with  Lord  Palmerston  as  to  the 
main  principles  of  his  foreign  policy,  which  was  even  an 
exaggeration  of  Mr.  Canning's  celebrated  speech  in  December 
1826."  He  then  went  on  to  explain  how  the  difference 
between  them  lay  in  their  attitude  to  the  autocratic  Govern- 
ments of  the  Continent.     (Martin,  iii.  112.) 

The  whole  question  of  the  beaten  Minister's  misdoings 
came  before  the  tribunal  of  Parliament  on  February  3,  1852, 
when  Lord  Palmerston  in  reply  to  Lord  John,  who  read 
with  fatal  effect  the  Queen's  letter  of  August  12,  1850,  made 
the  best  defence  he  could  of  his  conduct.  Mr.  Disraeli  com- 
pared the  fallen  statesman  to  a  "  beaten  fox."  (Letters,  ii. 
440.)  But  within  a  few  weeks  the  beaten  fox  had  his  re- 
venge, the  revenge  Lord  John  had  always  anticipated.  For 
on  February  20  he  carried  an  amendment  on  the  Govern- 
ment Militia  Bill,  and  so  brought  Lord  John  Russell's 
Ministry  to  an  end  and  Lord  Derby's  to  a  beginning. 

In  later  years  Lord  John  Russell  came  to  think  that  he 
had  been  too  hasty  in  the  dismissal  of  Palmerston  :  he 
should  have  seen  him  personally,  and  persuaded  him  to  submit 
to  the  Queen's  wishes.  (Walpole's  Russell,  ii.  142.)  But 
would  the  Court  have  accepted  any  submission  ?  In  any 
case  the  break-up  of  the  Whig  Ministry  was  most  unfor- 
tunate ;  for  had  the  Court  not  obtained,  after  the  brief  Tory 
interregnum,  its  long-desired  Coalition  Government  under 
Lord  Aberdeen,  there  would  probably  have  been  no  Crimean 
War.  And  with  regard  to  the  particular  incident  of  ap- 
proval of  the  coup  d'etat,  Lord  Palmerston  took  the  best 
means  at  his  disposal  for  averting  the  otherwise  almost  in- 
evitable war  between  France  and  England  to  which  the 
English  Press  was  then  heading.  In  the  division  of  opinion 
between  Palmerston  and  the  Queen  and  the  Prince  all  the 
weight  of  experience  was  on  Palmerston's  side,  and  their 
victory  over  him  was  the  victory  of  anti-liberal  principles  in 


The  Struggle  for  Foreign  Policy        229 

foreign  policy.  And  it  was  won  at  the  expense  of  the  nation 
by  the  Court's  successful  assertion  of  its  claim  to  a  dominant 
control  over  foreign  affairs.  Of  the  Parliament  that  was 
behind  the  Minister  or  of  the  public  that  was  behind  Parlia- 
ment there  is  no  evidence  derivable  from  the  Royal  corre- 
spondence that  the  Court  took  the  smallest  account.  Foreign 
policy  came  to  be  considered  as  a  matter  to  be  solely  or 
mainly  directed  by  the  Crown,  and  if  the  Crown  and  the 
country  took  divergent  views  it  was  the  views  of  the  Crown 
that  had  the  right  to  prevail.  The  story  of  Lord  Palmer  - 
ston's  tenure  of  the  Foreign  Office  entirely  disposes  of  the 
idea  that  in  those  most  important  departments  of  national 
interests  our  system  of  Constitutional  Monarchy  has  worked 
with  anything  like  the  smoothness  that  common  opinion 
ascribes  to  it.  Whether  any  other  system  would  have 
worked  more  smoothly  is  a  fair  matter  of  speculation. 


CHAPTER    V 

The  Russian  War  Time 

The  years  of  the  Crimean  War  (1854-56)  supply  several 
curious  illustrations  of  the  working  of  our  institutions  in 
war-time.  And  not  the  least  of  them  was  the  Press  attack 
on  the  Prince  Consort  which  preceded  the  war.  The  Daily 
News,  the  Morning  Herald,  the  Standard,  and  the  Morning 
Advertiser  were  specially  virulent  against  him,  the  Adver- 
tiser sometimes  indulging  in  as  many  as  five  or  six  articles 
a  day  on  the  subject.  (Greville,  vii.  127.)  "  Savage  libels," 
said  Greville,  who  declared  that  he  never  remembered  any- 
thing more  atrocious  or  more  unjust.  (January  15,  1854.) 
It  was  chiefly  imputed  to  the  Prince  that  he  took  the 
Austrian  and  Russian  side  against  France  on  the  Eastern 
question,  and  used  his  influence  with  the  Government  against 
the  Turks.  It  became  unsafe  for  him  to  show  himself  in 
public,  the  attacks  continuing  till  within  ten  days  of  the 
opening  of  Parliament,  and  till  the  very  day  in  the  case  of 
the  Morning  Advertiser.  But  perhaps  the  strangest  thing 
in  the  whole  story  is  that  Greville  should  have  accepted 
the  surmise,  that  the  whole  of  this  Press  campaign  was 
organised  and  financed  by  Napoleon  III.  and  his  ambassador, 
Count  Walewski,  with  a  political  object,  (vii.  135.)  That 
the  Emperor  did  sometimes  use  our  Press  for  his  own  pur- 
poses is  proved  by  Walewski's  admission  on  November  2, 
1852,  that  "  the  French  Government  paid  the  Morning  Post, 
and  that  he  saw  Borthwick,  the  editor,  every  day."  (Mal- 
mesbury's  Memoirs,  i.  362,  and  ii.  107,  151,  164.)  Surely  a 
rather  disagreeable  fact. 

Open  discussion  in  Parliament  so  far  dispelled  the  at- 
tacks on  the  Prince  that  on  February  4,  1854,  Lord  Aberdeen, 
the  Prime  Minister,  could  write  and  assure  him  that  the 
whole  edifice  of  falsehood  and  misrepresentation  had  been 


The  Russian  JVar  Time  231 

completely  overthrown.  The  Queen  wrote  to  Stockmar  on 
April  15,  1854,  that  "  the  black  time  when  foul  calumny 
strove  to  blind  our  deluded  people  vanished  from  the  hour 
Parliament  spoke  of  it."     {Letters,  iii.  3.) 

But  that  public  opinion  was  rather  silenced  than  satis- 
fied is  shown  by  an  incident  that  occurred  in  the  following 
year.  Roebuck's  Committee  to  inquire  into  the  state  of 
the  Army  wished  to  examine  the  Prince,  and  Roebuck 
horrified  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  by  telling  him  of  the  exist- 
ence in  the  Committee  of  a  belief  in  a  determination  on  the 
part  of  the  Prince  that  the  Crimean  expedition  should  fail. 
The  Duke  expressed  his  annoyance  at  the  wickedness  and 
folly  of  such  a  belief.  (Martin,  iii.  219-21.)  Yet  the  Prince 
could  justly  boast  that  during  his  fifteen  years  in  the  country 
he  had  not  given  a  human  soul  the  right  to  impute  to  him 
any  want  of  sincerity  or  patriotism,  and  that  he  and  the 
Queen  had  had  no  other  interest,  thought,  or  desire  than 
the  general  honour  and  power  of  the  country. 

The  Prince's  papers  on  the  Eastern  Question  alone  from 
1853-57  fill  fifty  folio  volumes,  so  that  abundant  testimony 
remains  of  his  thoughts  and  influence  on  the  Russian  War. 
But  from  what  Sir  Theodore  Martin  has  garnered  from  this 
vast  mass  there  is  enough  to  show  that  he  shared  the  common 
and  popular  view  of  his  day.  "  All  Europe,  Belgium  and 
Germany  included,"  he  wrote  to  King  Leopold  on  July  20, 
1854,  "  have  the  greatest  interest  in  the  integrity  and  inde- 
pendence of  the  Porte  being  secured  for  the  future,  but  a 
still  greater  in  Russia  being  defeated  and  chastised." 
(ib.  iii.  21.)  Which  latter  had  been  precisely  Stockmar's 
governing  wish  for  forty  years  since  1815.  Writing 
on  October  23,  1854,  to  the  future  William  I.  of  Germany 
of  the  popular  cry  "  for  the  annihilation  of  Russia,"  he  did 
not  dissociate  himself  from  this  futile  desire. 

Both  the  Prince  and  Stockmar  were  greatly  mortified 
that  all  their  exhortations  to  Prussia  and  Austria  to  join 
in  the  war  had  no  effect.  How  was  Stockmar's  forty  years' 
wish  for  the  humbling  of  Russia  to  be  realised  without  the 
aid  of  these  obstinate  Powers  ?  And  how  was  Prussia  to 
become  a  Great  Power  save  through  a  successful  war  ?  In 
1852  Stockmar  thus  wrote  to  a  Prussian  of  high  standing  : 


232  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

"  A  propos  of  being  a  Great  Power,  you  must  make  up 
your  mind  whether  you  are  and  really  wish  to  be  one  or  not. 
Many  will  not  allow,  and  for  myself  I  do  not  believe  that 
you  really  are.  But  you  aspire  to  being  one,  and  in  my 
view  justly  and  of  necessity,  and  the  task  before  you  is  to 
work  out  this  pretension  and  to  give  it  reality,  which  you 
can  only  do  by  a  successful  war.  .  .  .  Away  then  with  all 
attempts  at  neutrality,  and  give  yourselves  heart  and  soul 
to  find  out  how  the  war,  which  is  essential  to  you,  may  be 
undertaken."  {Letters,  ii.  456.)  And  then,  when  the  chance 
came,  Prussia  would  not  take  it  !  King  Frederic  William  IV. 
defended  his  neutrality  against  all  tempters.  And  there 
was  good  sense  in  his  reply  to  the  Queen  on  May  24,  1854  : 
"  I  have  recognised  it  as  my  duty  before  God  to  preserve, 
for  my  people  and  my  provinces,  peace,  because  I  recognise 
Peace  as  a  blessing  and  War  as  a  curse."  (ib.  iii.  37.) 
But  this  was  not  Stockmar's  philosophy.  And  it  must 
remain  a  matter  of  opinion  whether  the  Queen  was  right 
when  she  wrote  to  her  uncle,  Leopold,  on  January  29,  1856  : 
"  What  we  have  said  from  the  beginning,  and  what  I  have 
repeated  a  hundred  times  if  Prussia  and  Austria  had  held 
strong  and  decided  language  to  Russia  in  '53,  we  should  never 
have  had  this  war.     {ib.  iii.) 

That  the  Court  itself  had  desired  peace  is  shown  by  such 
a  letter  as  that  of  November  5,  1853,  from  the  Queen  to 
Lord  Aberdeen,  in  which,  in  reference  to  Lord  Stratford  de 
Redcliffe's  letters  shown  to  her  the  previous  day  by  Lord 
Clarendon,  she  remarks  that  "  they  exhibit  clearly  on  his 
part  a  desire  for  war,  and  to  drag  us  into  it.  ...  It  becomes 
a  serious  question  whether  we  are  justified  in  allowing  Lord 
Stratford  any  longer  to  remain  in  a  situation  which  gives 
him  the  means  of  frustrating  all  our  efforts  for  peace." 
{ib.  ii.  560.)  But  it  is  possible  that  the  incessant  memo- 
randa with  which  the  Prince  pressed  his  views  and  advice 
on  Lord  Aberdeen  and  Lord  Clarendon  contributed  less  than 
he  hoped  to  the  successful  conduct  of  the  negotiations  which 
preceded  the  outbreak  of  war. 

Once  engaged  in  the  Crimean  War,  the  Court  became  as 
deaf  as  the  country  generally  to  all  counsels  of  moderation. 
And  this  attitude  was  illustrated  by  an  extraordinary  in- 


The  Russian  War  Time  233 

cident.  On  June  19,  1854,  Lord  Lyndhurst,  speaking  in 
the  House  of  Lords,  in  the  course  of  a  conventional  philippic 
against  Russia,  declared  that  the  Russian  Empire  had  doubled 
itself  within  the  previous  fifty  years.  This  so  nettled  Lord 
Aberdeen  that  in  his  reply  he  laid  stress  on  the  fact  that  at 
the  Treaty  of  Adrianople  in  1829,  when  the  Russians  were 
within  fifty  miles  of  Constantinople,  Russia  acquired  not 
an  inch  of  Turkish  territory  in  Europe,  nor  had  she  in 
the  subsequent  twenty-five  years.  His  speech,  though  an 
admirable  one  in  other  respects,  ran  so  counter  to  the  anger 
of  the  hour  that  the  Queen  wrote  to  remonstrate.  She  told 
him  that  his  speech  had  caused  her  "  very  great  uneasiness." 
She  warned  him  that  the  public  was  "  impatient  and  annoyed 
to  hear  at  this  moment  the  first  Minister  of  the  Crown  enter 
into  an  impartial  examination  of  the  Emperor  of  Russia's 
character  and  conduct,"  and  hoped  that  in  vindicating  his 
fault  in  a  later  speech  he  would  not  "  undertake  the  un- 
grateful and  injurious  task  of  vindicating  the  Emperor  of 
Russia  from  any  of  the  exaggerated  charges  brought  against 
him  and  his  policy  at  a  time  when  there  is  enough  in  it  to 
make  us  fight  with  all  might  against  it."  (ib.  iii.  44.) 
And  in  a  speech  of  that  same  day  Lord  Aberdeen  made  a 
speech  to  explain  away  the  offence  he  had  given.  So  fatal 
is  war  both  to  common  notions  of  justice  and  to  constitu- 
tional liberty  that  we  actually  find  the  Queen  not  only  pro- 
testing against  an  impartial  view  of  an  enemy's  case  and 
defending  exaggerated  charges  against  him,  but  also  dictating 
to  her  first  Minister  on  the  expression  of  his  opinion  as  im- 
periously as  any  autocrat  might  have  done  in  the  most 
absolute  monarchy. 

The  war  played  havoc  with  our  politics.  On  January  24, 
1855,  Lord  John  Russell's  resignation  came  with  the  sudden- 
ness of  a  thunderbolt,  and  the  immediate  resignation  of 
the  whole  Aberdeen  Cabinet  was  only  averted  by  the  Queen's 
refusal  to  accept  their  resignation  as  "  unjust  towards  her- 
self," injurious  to  the  character  of  Ministers,  and  "  inde- 
fensible as  regards  the  country."  (Argyll's  Autobiography,  i. 
518.)  Then  came  the  defeat  of  the  Government  on  January 
30  by  a  majority  of  157  ;  the  reconstruction  of  the  Cabinet 
under  Lord  Palmerston  ;    the  reluctant  adherence  to  it  of 


234  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

the  Peelites  under  Gladstone  on  February  18  ;  followed  by 
their  speedy  resignation  on  February  21.  After  this  ex- 
citing crisis  in  the  very  middle  of  the  Crimean  War,  the 
Queen  was  forced  to  make  Lord  Palmerston  her  first  Minister. 
"  I  had  no  other  alternative,"  she  lamented  on  February  6, 
1855,  to  her  uncle  Leopold.  "  The  Whigs  will  join  with 
him,  and  I  have  got  hopes  also  the  Peelites,  which  would  be 
very  important,  and  would  tend  to  allay  the  alarm  which 
his  name  will,  I  fear,  produce  abroad."     (Letters,  iii.  128.) 

Mr.  Disraeli's  description  of  Lord  Palmerston  when  he 
became  Prime  Minister  of  England  was  as  follows  :  "  really 
an  impostor,  utterly  exhausted,  and  at  the  best  only  ginger 
beer  and  not  champagne,  and  now  an  old  painted  pantaloon, 
very  deaf,  very  blind,  and  with  false  teeth."  (February  2, 
1855,  Life,  iii.  567.)  Yet  he  remained  at  his  post  with  but 
little  intermission  till  his  death  in  1865. 

On  the  formation  of  the  new  Government  Lord  Palmer- 
ston wrote  a  friendly  letter  to  the  Emperor  Napoleon,  with 
a  view  to  fortifying  the  alliance  between  the  two  countries. 
But  the  letter  gave  the  Court  "  great  uneasiness,"  for  "  the 
sort  of  private  correspondence  which  Lord  Palmerston 
means  to  establish  with  the  Emperor  Napoleon  is  a  novel 
and  unconstitutional  practice."  (February  11,  1855,  Letters, 
iii.  134.) 

Much  to  Greville's  vexation,  the  Times  went  into  "  furious 
opposition  "  to  the  Palmerston  Government.  Greville  was 
"  to  the  last  degree  shocked  and  disgusted  at  its  conduct 
and  the  enormous  mischief  it  was  endeavouring  to  do." 
(vii.  246.)  He  thought  the  Constitution  itself  in  danger, 
writing  on  February  19  :  "  We  have  never  seen  .  .  .  such 
a  thorough  confusion  and  political  chaos,  or  the  public  mind 
so  completely  disturbed  and  dissatisfied,  and  so  puzzled 
how  to  arrive  at  any  just  conclusion  as  to  the  past,  the 
present,  or  the  future."  (ib.  vii.  247.)  Yet  the  Queen,  he 
allowed,  had  "  behaved  with  an  admirable  sense  of  her  con- 
stitutional responsibilities  "  in  sending  first  for  Lord  Derby, 
then  for  Lord  Lansdowne,  then  for  Lord  John,  and  last  of  all 
for  Lord  Palmerston.     (ib.  vii.  238.) 

A  chance  of  peace  came  in  1855,  when  Lord  John  Russell 
as  our  plenipotentiary  and  Drouyn   de   Lluys  on  behalf  of 


The  Russian  IVar  Time  235 

France  attended  the  Conference  at  Vienna  to  discuss  terms 
on  the  basis  of  the  Four  Points,  of  which  the  most  difficult 
concerned  the  future  of  the  Black  Sea.  When  Russia  refused 
to  surrender  her  preponderance  in  that  sea,  Austria  made 
further  suggestions,  which  both  plenipotentiaries  thought 
acceptable,  but  which  were  rejected  by  their  respective 
Governments.  "  How  Lord  John  Russell,"  wrote  the  Queen 
to  Lord  Clarendon  on  April  25,  "  can  recommend  such  pro- 
posals to  our  acceptance  is  beyond  our  comprehension." 
On  May  3,  the  Prince  addressed  a  memorandum  to  the 
Cabinet,  in  which  he  proposed  a  defensive  European  League 
against  Russia  in  defence  of  Turkey :  any  question  be- 
tween Turkey  and  another  Power  was  to  be  brought  before 
a  European  tribunal,  and  any  attempt  by  any  single  Power 
to  coerce  Turkey  was  to  be  a  casus  belli  for  the  rest  of  the 
League.  This,  he  thought,  would  place  a  moral  bar  on  the 
kind  of  protectorate  which  Russia  had  exercised  over  Central 
Europe  and  particularly  over  Germany.  Stockmar,  who 
had  spent  the  winter  in  England,  left  on  May  5,  and  the 
Prince,  writing  to  him  on  the  8th,  said,  in  reference  to  this 
memorandum :  "  Your  ideas  have  been  developed  in  it.  I 
would  I  could  have  submitted  it  to  yourself  first."  (Martin, 
iii.  274.)  To  the  Prince,  Stockmar's  approval  counted  for 
more  than  any  Prime  Minister's,  and  one  may  guess  that 
it  was  Stockmar's  counsel  that  had  most  influence  in  the 
prolongation  of  the  war  for  another  year.  Russia  had  not 
been  sufficiently  punished  to  meet  Stockmar's  views  for  the 
strengthening  of  Germany. 

The  same  spirit  that  had  led  the  Queen  to  interfere  with 
freedom  of  speech  in  the  House  of  Lords  by  her  reproval  of 
Lord  Aberdeen  showed  itself  in  the  Court's  attitude  to  the 
few  men  of  more  humanity  than  influence  who  constituted 
the  Peace  Party.     Yet    many  who    had  wished  for  war  in 

1854  wished  it  over  in  1855.  Lord  Granville,  who  as  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Duchy  in  the  Ministry  which  had  committed  us 
to  war,  was  now,  as  President  of  the  Council,  among  the 
penitents.  But  probably  he  would  not  have  said  from  a 
platform  what  he  wrote  to  the  Duke  of  Argyll  on  May  3, 

1855  :  It  was  "  with  sorrow  and  almost  with  shame  "  that 
he   personally   accepted   the   Austrian   proposals   of   peace. 


236  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

"  The  nation,"  he  said,  "  had  been  lashed  by  Parliamentary 
speeches,  by  public  meetings,  and  by  the  Press  into  the 
most  extravagant  expectations  of  what  we  were  to  attempt 
and  what  we  were  to  achieve  "  ;  so  that  the  general  feeling 
about  peace  was  bound  to  be  one  of  disappointment  and  mortifi- 
cation. But  "  the  deaths  of  brave  men  and  distinguished 
officers,  falling  in  affairs  which  have  absolutely  no  result, 
press  upon  us  the  duty  of  considering  whether  it  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  continue  this  war."     (Fitzmaurice,  i.  106-8.) 

The  Court,  of  course,  thought  it  was,  its  military  environ- 
ment secluding  it  entirely  from  all  but  the  most  bellicose 
section  of  the  community.  Bright  and  Cobden  had  long 
been  politically  distasteful  to  the  Queen  and  Prince,  and 
they  became  more  so  through  the  war.  Lord  John  Russell's 
failure  to  form  a  Ministry  at  the  close  of  1845  owing  to  the 
refusal  of  Lord  Grey  to  join  a  Government  with  Palmerston 
again  at  the  Foreign  Office,  was  the  great  disappointment 
of  his  life,  for  it  robbed  him  of  the  credit  of  repealing  the 
Corn  Laws  (Walpole's  Russell,  li.  530)  ;  and  it  was  in  the 
course  of  these  negotiations  that  the  Prince  noted  with  horror 
that  Lord  Grey  "  wanted  Mr.  Cobden  to  be  in  the  Cabinet ! ! !  " 
(Letters,  ii.  71,  December  20,  1845.)  And  when  Peel  in  his 
last  speech  on  the  Corn  Law  Repeal  specially  praised  Cobden 
as  the  real  author  of  the  measure,  thereby  making  it  difficult 
for  the  new  Prime  Minister,  Lord  John  Russell,  not  to  offer 
Cobden  an  office,  the  Queen's  comment  to  her  uncle  was  : 
"  The  only  thing  to  be  regretted,  and  I  do  not  know  exactly 
why  he  (Peel)  did  it  (though  we  can  guess),  was  his  praise  of 
Cobden,  which  has  shocked  people  a  good  deal."  (ib. 
ii.  104,  July  7,  1846.)  When  on  October  14,  1847,  Lord 
John  Russell  proposed  that  this  public  agitator  should  be 
President  of  the  Poor  Law  Commission  with  a  seat  in  the 
Cabinet,  the  Queen  replied  that,  whilst  admitting  his  quali- 
fications, she  felt  that  "  the  elevation  to  the  Cabinet  directly 
from  Covent  Garden  (the  scene  of  the  Free  Trade  meetings) 
strikes  her  as  a  very  serious  step,  calculated  to  cause  much 
dissatisfaction  in  many  quarters,  and  setting  a  dangerous 
example  to  agitators  in  general  (for  his  main  reputation 
Mr.  Cobden  gained  as  a  successful  agitator)."  She  therefore 
thought    it    best    that    he    should    only    be    promoted    to 


The  Russian  War  Time  237 

the  Cabinet  after  service  on  the  Commission.  (ib.  ii. 
155.) 

Bright  was  in  still  worse  odour  than  his  friend.  When 
Palmerston  formed  his  second  Ministry  in  July  1850,  he 
offered  Cobden  the  Board  of  Trade,  pointing  out  in  vain  that 
they  both  favoured  neutrality  in  the  Italian  war  then  raging, 
however  much  they  might  have  differed  in  the  past  ;  but 
he  would  make  no  such  offer  to  Bright,  on  account  of  his 
speeches,  though  he  did  suggest  to  the  Queen  that,  if  Bright 
were  made  a  Privy  Councillor,  the  honour  might  "  turn  his 
thoughts  and  feelings  into  better  channels."  The  Queen, 
however,  would  have  him  on  no  terms.  "  It  would  be  im- 
possible to  allege  any  service  Mr.  Bright  had  rendered,  and 
if  the  honour  were  looked  upon  as  a  reward  for  his  systematic 
attack  on  the  institutions  of  the  country,  a  very  erroneous 
impression  might  be  produced  as  to  the  feeling  which  the 
Queen  or  her  Government  entertained  towards  these  in- 
stitutions."    (ib.  iii.  446,  July  2,  1859.) 

Their  opposition,  therefore,  in  1855  to  the  fruitless  war 
only  intensified  the  Court's  dislike  of  them.  But  more 
powerful  statesmen  came  round  to  their  side,  the  foremost 
of  them  Mr.  Gladstone.  Lord  Aberdeen's  expression  of  com- 
punction "  for  having  allowed  the  country  to  be  dragged 
without  adequate  cause  into  the  war,"  and  his  declaration 
that  it  would  weigh  on  his  conscience  for  his  life  (Morley, 
i.  536,  537),  doubtless  weighed  much  with  him;  but  by  January 
1855  the  professed  objects  of  the  war  had  been  virtually 
obtained  by  the  Czar's  acceptance  of  three  out  of  the  four 
points  for  which  we  contended,     (ib.  i.  545.) 

And  no  sooner  had  the  events  of  February  released  him 
from  the  trammels  of  office  than  Gladstone  threw  all  his 
powers  into  the  cause  of  peace  ;  made  two  of  the  greatest 
speeches  of  his  career,  one  of  which  was  denounced  as  "  the 
most  unpatriotic  speech  ever  heard  within  the  walls  of 
Parliament  "  ;  and  found  it  difficult  to  believe,  from  being 
assured  of  it  on  all  sides,  that  he  was  not  the  greatest  scoundrel 
on  earth,     (ib.  i.  548,  549.) 

The  Court  frowned  as  sternly  as  the  crowd  on  the  growing 
Peace  Party.  In  a  letter  to  Stockmar  of  May  20,  1855,  the 
Prince  expressed  his  unlimited  contempt  for  them  :    "  The 


238  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Peace  Party — Bright,  etc. — bring  forward  a  motion  this  evening 
for  peace  a  tout  prix,  to  which  the  Peelites  (with  Gladstone 
and  Graham  at  their  head)  will  give  their  adherence ! !,  and 
which  Lord  Grey  is  to  follow  up  by  a  motion  to  the  same 
effect  in  the  Upper  House,  a  motion  which  has  been  con- 
certed with  Aberdeen.  Thus  these  people  will  present  a 
public  confirmation  of  all  the  charges  which  have  been  made 
against  them  for  the  last  ten  years."     (Martin,  iii.  282.) 

On  June  3,  the  Prince  wrote  a  strong  letter  to  Lord  Aber- 
deen, protesting  against  the  line  taken  by  his  former  friends 
and  colleagues,  except  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  on  the  war 
question,  a  line  which  had  caused  the  Queen  and  himself 
great  anxiety,  (ib.  iii.  289-91.)  The  letter  happily  did  not 
deter  either  Sir  James  Graham  or  Sidney  Herbert  from 
speaking  for  peace  in  the  next  day's  debate  ;  but  not  even 
George  III.  had  ever  attempted  a  grosser  violation  of  the 
freedom  of  Parliamentary  speech.  All  the  Court  thought 
of  was  to  please  Stockmar,  to  whom  the  Prince  wrote  on 
June  7  about  the  debate  he  had  vainly  tried  to  influence  : 
"  As  you  will  have  seen,  Cobden  and  Graham  have  made 
Russian  speeches.  I  wrote  a  fiery  letter  to  Aberdeen." 
(ib.  iii.  292.) 

At  a  later  date,  when  the  General  Election  in  the  spring 
of  1857  had  returned  Lord  Palmerston  to  power  with  an 
increased  majority  as  a  sign  of  the  country's  approval  of  his 
"  spirited  policy  "  towards  China,  no  one  was  more  delighted 
than  the  Prince  over  the  defeat  of  the  Peace  Party.  He 
thus  wrote  to  the  Duke  of  Coburg  on  April  9,  1857  :  "  The 
Ministers  have  gained  24  counties  and  20  towns,  and  the 
apostles  of  peace  have  been  turned  out  by  the  people  neck 
and  crop.  Not  because  the  people  do  not  love  peace,  but 
because  they  love  their  own  importance  and  their  own  honour, 
and  will  not  submit  to  be  tyrannised  over  by  the  peace  at 
any  price  people."     (ib.  iv.  26.) 

The  common  interest  of  the  Crimean  War  served  to  bring 
the  Court  and  the  Prime  Minister  into  more  harmonious 
relations.  But,  as  Lord  Clarendon  told  Lord  Granville  on 
April  25,  1855,  though  the  Queen  and  Prince  meant  to  treat 
Lord  Palmerston  with  confidence,  the  old  mistrust  still 
haunted   them.     On   September   16,    1855,    he   wrote :     "I 


The  Russian  War  Time  239 

think  they  are  unfair  about  Palmerston,  though  he  has 
done  nothing  to  justify  this  since  he  has  been  in  office. " 
(Fitzmaurice,  i.  105,  120.)  But  by  December  26,  1855, 
Greville  could  write  that  Palmerston  was  now  "on  very 
good  terms  with  the  Queen,  which  is,  though  he  doesn't 
know  it,  attributable  to  Clarendon's  constant  endeavour  to 
reconcile  her  to  him." 

Nevertheless,  despite  all  we  had  done  in  the  war  for  the 
cause  of  public  law  and  the  rights  of  weaker  nationalities, 
we  had  failed  to  earn  either  the  love  or  the  gratitude  of  the 
world.  "  We  know  very  well,"  the  Prince  wrote  to  King 
Leopold  on  February  16,  1856,  "  that  England  is  hated  all 
over  the  Continent  "  ;  and  Lord  Clarendon  gave  the  same 
testimony,  saying  that  it  was  impossible  to  conceive  the 
hatred  with  which  Palmerston  was  regarded  all  over  Ger- 
many ...  as  much  on  the  part  of  the  people  as  of  the 
Government,  both  thinking  they  had  been  deceived  and 
thrown  over  by  him."     (Greville,  vii.  320.) 

Towards  the  end  of  1855  peace  came  within  sight. 
Austria  came  forward  with  four  fresh  points,  of  which  the 
most  important  was  the  neutralisation  of  the  Black  Sea, 
instead  of  the  former  proposal  prohibitive  of  Russia's  enjoying 
preponderance  in  it.  The  Queen  was  favourably  disposed 
to  the  proposals,  as  was  also  Clarendon.  (Argyll,  i.  593.) 
But  the  French  Emperor  by  his  speech  at  Paris  on  November 
15,  in  which  he  declared  that  "  France  had  no  hatreds," 
gave  the  real  impetus  to  peace.  Lord  Cowley,  our  am- 
bassador at  Paris,  spoke  of  this  speech  as  having  "  done  all  the 
mischief  he  expected  "  ;  but  Lord  Cowley  was  a  war  fanatic, 
"  so  hot  about  the  war  that  he  seemed  almost  to  dread 
peace,  as  in  itself  a  horrible  event  and  a  great  calamity." 
(ib.  i.  598.)  The  "  strong  language  "  of  the  Emperor  decided 
the  Cabinet  of  November  20  to  assent  to  Austria's  making 
these  fresh  proposals  (ib.  i.  596),  and  when  the  Duke  of  Argyll 
went  to  Windsor  on  November  21  to  kiss  hands  on  changing 
from  the  post  of  Privy  Seal  to  that  of  the  Post  Office  he 
rejoiced  to  find  both  the  Queen  and  the  Prince  approved 
on  the  whole  of  the  Cabinet's  decision,  (ib.  i.  599.)  On 
December  16  the  news  came  that  the  Austrian  Emperor 
had  accepted  the  English  modifications  of  his  ultimatum,  and 


240  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

sent  it  to  Petrograd  ;  and  on  January  16,  1856,  the  news  came 
that  Russia  had  accepted  the  same. 

But  the  Queen's  letters  show  that  her  approval  of  the  fresh 
peace  proposals  was  very  superficial.  The  only  peace  since 
1700  that  was  ever  popular  in  England  was  that  of  Paris  in 
1814  ;  the  peaces  of  Utrecht  in  1713,  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  in  1748, 
of  Paris  in  1763,  of  Versailles  in  1783,  of  Amiens  in  1802,  were 
denounced  at  the  time  as  ignominious  and  premature  ;  and  so 
it  was  sure  to  be  with  any  peace  that  concluded  the  Crimean 
War.  The  Queen,  sharing  the  common  opinion  described  by 
Greville  that  it  would  "  prove  quite  easy  to  crumple  up  Russia 
and  to  reduce  her  to  accept  such  terms  as  we  chose  to  impose 
on  her  "  (vii.  202),  was  hard  to  reconcile  to  the  idea  of  peace. 
On  January  15,  1856,  she  wrote  to  Lord  Clarendon  that  she 
could  not  conceal  from  him  her  own  feelings  and  wishes  at 
the  moment.  "  They  cannot  be  for  peace  now,  for  she  is 
convinced  that  this  country  would  not  stand  in  the  eyes  of 
Europe  as  she  ought,  and  as  the  Queen  is  convinced  she  would 
after  this  year's  campaign.  The  honour  and  glory  of  her 
dear  Army  is  as  near  her  heart  as  almost  anything,  and  she 
cannot  bear  the  thought  that  '  the  failure  of  the  Redan  ' 
should  be  our  last  fait  oVarmes,  and  it  would  cost  her  more 
than  words  can  express  to  conclude  a  peace  with  this  as  the 
end.  However,  what  is  best  and  wisest  must  be  done." 
(Letters,  iii.  207,  January  15,  1856.)  And  when  the  Peace 
Conferences  were  about  to  begin  at  Paris,  she  wrote  to  her 
uncle  on  February  12  that  she  would  say  nothing  about 
them,  as  she  had  "  too  strong  feelings  to  speak  upon  the 
subject."  (ib.  iii.  217.)  She  cherished  the  vain  ideal  of  wishing 
for  no  peace  that  would  fall  short  of  rendering  another  such 
war  impossible.  As  she  expressed  it  to  her  uncle  :  "  Eng- 
land's policy  throughout  has  been  the  same,  singularly  un- 
selfish, and  solely  actuated  by  the  desire  of  seeing  Europe 
saved  from  the  arrogant  and  dangerous  pretensions  of  that 
barbarous  power  Russia,  and  of  having  such  safeguards 
established  for  the  future,  which  may  ensure  us  against  a 
repetition  of  similar  untoward  events,  (ib.  iii.  215,  January 
1856.) 

And  that  great  war-engine,  the  Press,  was  on  the  same 
side.     "  The  intelligence  of  peace  at  hand,"  wrote  Greville 


The  Russian  PVar  Time  241 

on  January  22,  1856,  "  gives  no  satisfaction  here,  and  the 
whole  Press  is  violent  against  it,  and  thunders  away  against 
Russia  and  Austria,  warns  the  people  not  to  expect  peace, 
and  invites  them  to  go  on  with  the  war.  There  seems  little 
occasion  for  this  .  .  .  the  Press  has  succeeded  in  inoculating 
the  public  with  such  an  eager  desire  for  war  that  there  appears 
a  general  regret  at  the  notion  of  making  peace."  And  when 
on  January  31  the  Queen's  Speech  announced  the  prelimin- 
aries of  peace,  his  comment  was  :  "  Who  would  ever  have 
thought  that  tidings  of  peace  would  produce  a  general  senti- 
ment of  disappointment  and  dissatisfaction  in  the  nation  ?  " 
(viii.  9,  12.)  And  when  the  Peace  Conference  had  begun  at 
Paris  it  was  Greville's  opinion  that,  if  Lord  Clarendon  were 
to  return  and  to  announce  that  the  failure  of  negotiations 
necessitated  the  continuance  of  the  war,  "  he  would  be  hailed 
with  the  greatest  enthusiasm,  and  the  ardour  for  war  would 
break  out  with  redoubled  force."  (ib.  viii.  19.)  But  when 
peace  was  actually  signed  at  the  end  of  March,  the  news 
was  received  joyfully,  and  the  newspapers  were  "  reasonable 
enough,  except  the  Sun,  which  appeared  in  deep  mourning 
and  with  a  violent  tirade  against  peace."  (ib.  viii.  41.) 
Lord  Granville,  writing  to  Lord  Canning  on  April  29,  1856, 
records  the  curious  fact  that  the  proclamation  of  Peace 
that  morning  was  hissed  at  Temple  Bar.  (Fitzmaurice's 
Granville,  i.  178.) 

When  at  last  Peace  was  made,  it  pleased  the  Court  as 
little  as  the  rest  of  the  nation.  The  Prince,  Stockmar,  and 
the  public  had  nursed  such  extravagant  hopes  that  dis- 
appointment was  the  inevitable  consequence  of  their  dis- 
illusion. A  more  thorough  chastisement  had  been  hoped 
for.  Lord  Harrowby  in  the  Cabinet  itself  had  expressed  the 
desire  of  thousands  for  the  actual  dismemberment  of  Russia. 
(Argyll,  i.  558.)  Lord  Clarendon  and  Lord  Palmerston 
had  wished  to  extend  the  objects  of  the  war  to  a  guarantee 
of  the  whole  possessions  of  Norway  and  Sweden  against 
Russia,  (ib.  i.  564,  591,  592.)  That  country  was  to  be  in- 
capacitated for  future  aggression  by  the  loss  of  her  frontier 
territories  in  Finland,  Poland,  and  Georgia  ;  and  on  December 
19,  1855,  Admiral  Dundas  had  explained  to  a  War  Committee 
how  it  was  hoped  to  attack  the  great  arsenal  at  Cronstadt 
16 


242  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

within  the  course  of  the  coming  year.  (Fitzmaurice,  i. 
132.) 

So  it  was  natural  that  the  Prince  should  write  of  the  Peace 
to  Stockmar  on  March  21,  1856,  that  "  it  was  not  such  a 
Peace  as  we  could  have  wished,"  though  infinitely  preferable 
to  a  continuance  of  the  war  ;  and  the  Queen,  writing  to 
congratulate  her  ally  Napoleon  on  April  3,  confessed  to  sharing 
the  feeling  of  the  majority  of  her  people  "  that  this  peace 
was  perhaps  a  little  premature."  (Martin,  iii.  473.)  On 
March  6  she  had  written  to  Lord  Palmerston  :  "  With 
reference  to  Lord  Clarendon's  letter,  the  Queen  must  say 
that  she,  though  very  reluctantly,  shares  his  opinion  that  we 
have  no  choice  now  but  to  accept  the  Peace,  even  if  it  is  not 
all  we  could  desire,  and  if  another  campaign  might  have  got 
us  better  terms."  (Letters,  iii.  473.)  On  March  31  she  wrote 
to  him  that  "  much  as  the  Queen  dislikes  the  idea  of  Peace, 
she  has  become  reconciled  to  it,  by  the  conviction  that  France 
either  would  not  have  continued  the  war,  or  continued 
it  in  such  a  manner  that  no  glory  could  have  been  hoped 
for  for  us."  And  on  April  1  she  wrote  to  her  uncle  in  actual 
praise  of  the  peace  and  still  more  of  Lord  Clarendon  for  having 
effected  it.  (ib.  iii.  235.)  It  was  the  supreme  merit  of 
the  Queen  that  her  reason  always  came  readily  to  her  aid 
and  triumphed  over  sentiment. 

The  Court  used  its  influence  beneficently  in  adopting  this 
sensible  view  about  the  Peace  ;  for  the  opposition  to  it  re- 
mained strong  in  the  country.  Lord  Malmesbury  on  May  5 
spoke  for  an  hour  against  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  and  Lord  Derby 
ended  a  speech  against  it  by  calling  it  the  "  capitulation  " 
of  Paris.  (Malmesbury's  Memoirs,  ii.  47.)  Writing  to  her 
uncle  next  day  the  Queen  said,  "  The  Opposition  have  taken 
the  line  of  disapproving  the  Peace  and  showing  great  hostility 
to  Russia."  (Letters,  iii.  241.)  Lord  Derby  in  a  letter  to 
Lord  Malmesbury  of  August  25,  1856,  ventured  on  the  un- 
fortunate prediction  that  it  would  not  be  long  before  the 
Government  would  be  heartily  ashamed  of  the  terms  and 
results  of  the  Peace  they  had  "  patched  up."  (Malmesbury, 
ii.  51.)  The  "  patched-up  "  Peace  lasted  sixty  years,  and  is 
still  vigorous.  A  patched-up  Peace  is  better  than  a  continued 
war,  and  of  this  Lord  Palmerston  happily  had  no  difficulty 


The  Russian  IVar  Time  243 

in  convincing  the  Queen.  He  argued  with  her  that,  though 
the  Peace  was  of  no  certain  durability,  it  was  a  settlement 
"  satisfactory  for  the  present,"  and  probably  for  many  years, 
of  questions  full  of  danger  for  Europe.  We  might  have 
gained  more  brilliant  successes,  had  the  war  continued,  but 
any  additional  security  against  future  aggressions  by  Russia 
could  only  have  been  gained  by  continuing  the  war  to  a  point 
beyond  the  possible  endurance  of  the  Allies  or  the  goodwill 
of  the  Queen's  own  subjects.  {Letters,  iii.  233.)  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  Lord  Palmerston  seems  only  to  have  expected  a  life 
of  seven  or  ten  years  for  the  stipulations  affecting  the  Black 
Sea,  from  which  the  Conference  of  London  relieved  Russia  in 
November  1870.     (Morley's  Gladstone,  ii.  349.) 

Every  war,  by  the  nature  of  things,  tends  to  strengthen 
the  Executive  at  the  expense  of  the  Legislature,  and  tries  to 
the  utmost  all  the  liberties  of  a  people.  In  the  summer  of 
1855  the  Prince  Consort  made  his  famous  speech  at  Trinity 
House,  in  which  he  spoke  of  Constitutional  Government  as 
under  a  heavy  trial.  Stockmar  himself  found  fault  with 
him  for  having  spoken  as  if  he  were  at  heart  opposed  to 
representative  Government.  Stockmar's  view  was  that 
"  the  assertion  that  the  advantages  of  the  Constitutional 
system  outweighed  its  disadvantages  was  only  true  so  far  as 
a  free  Constitution  developed  a  greater  amount  of  material 
or  moral  force  than  the  forces  of  despotic  Government  " 
{Martin,  iii.  299) :  which  would  seem  to  mean  that  a  strong 
military  autocracy  might  be  preferable  to  a  democracy.  The 
Prince  admitted  that  his  omission  of  any  qualification  had 
been  accidental  on  his  part. 

The  incident  gave  rise  to  some  public  disquiet,  which  was 
not  without  justification.  For  the  Prince  had  become  "  to 
all  intents  and  purposes  King,"  though  acting  entirely  in 
the  Queen's  name.  {Greville,  viii.  128.)  All  his  views,  said 
Greville.  were  those  of  a  Constitutional  Sovereign,  whilst  at 
the  same  time  he  made  "  the  Crown  an  entity."  Lord 
Clarendon  vouched  for  the  Prince's  having  written  some  of 
the  ablest  papers  he  had  ever  read.  But  the  great  abilities 
of  the  Prince  are  quite  compatible  with  his  having  made  the 
Crown  too  much  of  an  entity,  and  having  been  too  impatient 
of  Parliamentary  methods.     Yet  with  this  reservation  both 


244  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

he  and  Stockmar  were  never  disloyal  to  representative 
Government  ;  a  proof  of  this  is  that  in  Germany  Stockmar 
was  regarded  with  terror  for  his  Liberalism.  When  in  August 
1858  he  was  at  Berlin  with  the  Queen  and  the  Prince,  his 
presence  was  viewed  with  "  rancorous  suspicion  "  by  the 
aristocratic  party,  who  held  in  abhorrence  a  man  of  known 
advocacy  of  Constitutional  Government  in  Germany  (Martin, 
iv.  318) ;  and  when  in  December  1858  only  70  out  of  350 
members  elected  to  the  Prussian  Chamber  belonged  to  the 
reactionary  party,  no  one  was  more  delighted  than  the  Prince 
Consort,     (ib.  iv.  326.) 

Therefore,  it  was  in  every  way  unfortunate  that  the 
Press  continued  to  make  his  life  a  burden  to  the  Prince  ; 
especially  the  Times,  which  was  violently  anti-German. 
The  Press  of  that  day,  in  fact,  prepared  the  ground  for  the 
war  which  was  to  break  out  in  1914.  When  the  Princess 
Royal  became  engaged  to  the  future  German  Emperor 
Frederick,  the  Times  of  October  3,  1855,  wrote  an  article, 
not  only  inconsiderate  to  the  Queen  and  her  Consort,  but 
"  insulting  to  the  Prussian  King  and  nation,  and  indeed  to 
all  Germany."  This  article  was  one  of  a  series  by  which  the 
Times  had  done  its  best  to  make  England  detested  throughout 
Germany,  and  the  Prince,  writing  to  Stockmar  about  it, 
described  it  as  "  at  once  truly  scandalous  in  itself  and  degrad- 
ing to  the  country,  with  a  view  to  provoke  hostile  public 
opinion."     (ib.  hi.  374-5.) 

The  Duchess  of  Manchester,  writing  from  Hanover  to  the 
Queen  in  November  1858,  and  referring  to  the  friendliness 
shown  by  Germans  of  all  classes  towards  the  strangers, 
especially  to  English,  at  some  manoeuvres  on  the  Rhine,  said 
that  it  made  her  "  quite  ashamed  of  those  wanton  attacks  " 
which  the  Times  always  made  on  Prussia,  and  which  were 
read  and  copied  into  all  the  Prussian  papers.  (Queen's  Letters, 
hi.  384.) 

Such  articles  naturally  embittered  relations  between 
England  and  Prussia,  and  in  September  1860,  when  the 
Queen  and  Prince  were  travelling  in  Germany,  an  incident 
occurred  which  even  threatened  war.  Captain  Macdonald, 
after  being  turned  out  of  a  train  at  Bonn  by  the  railway 
authorities,    was    imprisoned   and   fined.     Whereupon   Lord 


The  Russian  IVar  Time  245 

Palmerston  wrote  a  memorandum  that,  unless  the  judge  who 
sentencedthe  Captain  were  at  once  cashiered  and  punished,  and 
reparation  made  to  the   Captain,   diplomatic  relations   with 
Prussia  would  be  broken  off.     The  affair  became  the  subject 
of  a  Blue  Book  ;  it  was  discussed  in  Parliament  and  in  the 
Prussian  Chambers,  and  the  Prince  described  as  "  studiously 
insulting  "  an  article  in  the  Times  of  May  8,   1861,  which 
much  intensified  the  anger  in  Berlin  at  a  speech  of  Lord 
Palmerston,  in  which  he  described  the  action  of  Prussia  as  a 
blunder  as  well  as  a  crime,     (ib.  v.  347.)     For  months  the 
incessant  attacks  of  the   Times  on    Prussia  and  everything 
Prussian  were  a  source  of  great  vexation  to  the  Prince,  who 
on  October  24,  1860,  thus  wrote  to  his  daughter  in  Berlin  : 
"  What  abominable  articles  the  Times  has  against  Prussia. 
That  of  yesterday  on  Warsaw  and  Schleinitz  is  positively 
wicked.     It  is  the  Bonn  story,  which  continues  to  operate, 
and  a  total  estrangement  between  the  two  countries  may 
ensue,  if  a  newspaper  war  be  kept  up  for  some  time  between 
the  two  nations."     (Martin,  v.  229.)     The  Prince,  not  without 
justice,  in  the  last  years  of  his  life  viewed  with  some  alarm 
the    "  irritating,   bold,   and   offensive   tone   adopted   by   an 
influential   section  of  the  English  Press  towards  Prussia." 
(ib.  v.  347.)     The  Queen,  too,  foreseeing  the  danger  which 
the  Times  was  creating  for  the  future,  thus  wrote  to  Lord 
Palmerston  on  October  25,  1861  :   "  The  Queen  has  long  seen 
with  deep  regret  the  persevering  efforts  made  by  the  Times, 
which  leads  the  rest  of  our  Press,  in  attacking,  vilifying,  and 
abusing   everything    German,    and    particularly   everything 
Prussian.     That  journal   had  since   years  shown  the  same 
bias,  but  it  is  since  the  Macdonald  affair  of  last  year  that  it 
has  assumed  that  tone  of  virulence  which  could  not  fail  to 
produce    the    deepest    indignation    amongst    the    people    of 
Germany,  and  by  degrees  estrange  the  feelings  of  the  people 
of  this  country  from  Germany.  .  .  .  National  hatred  between 
these  two  peoples  is  a  real   political   calamity  for  both." 
(Letters,   iii.   587.)     Lord   Palmerston  accordingly  wrote  to 
Mr.  Delane,  who  promised  to  give  the  Prussians  a  "  respite  " 
from  advice,  and  excused  the  offending  articles  on  the  plea 
of  the  King  of  Prussia's  anachronistic  sentiments  about  the 
Divine  Right  of  Kings  uttered  at  his  Coronation. 


246  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

When  Lord  Clarendon  was  going  to  Berlin  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  Coronation  as  King  of  Prussia  of  the  late  Prince 
Regent,  the  Prince  wrote  to  him  on  October  8,  1861  :  "  You 
will  find  feeling  in  Germany  very  bitter  against  us,  less 
amongst  the  Cabinets  than  the  people,  owing  chiefly  to  the 
systematic  attacks  on  and  vilification  of  everything  German 
by  our  Press  for  the  last  twelve  months  ;  together  with  the 
fact  that  every  anti-German  movement  is  received  with 
enthusiasm  here."  Germany,  he  wrote,  would  be  anni- 
hilated if  she  lost  Venice,  Galicia,  Hungary,  Posen,  and 
Holstein,  and  was  surrounded  instead  by  hostile  nations 
under  the  control  of  France.  Yet  this  was  what  so-called 
public  opinion  in  England  was  aiming  at  and  desiring. 
(Martin,  v.  393.) 

In  his  last  letter  to  Stockmar  from  Balmoral  of  October 
14,  1861,  he  complained  that  in  foreign  politics  "the  Press, 
and  particularly  the  Times,  is  doing  all  it  can  to  alienate 
England  and  Germany  from  each  other  as  widely  as  possible  ; 
and  a  formal  crusade  is  in  progress  against  Prussia  as  it 
formerly  was  against  Naples.  To  what  end  ?  Why  ?  I 
have  lost  my  wits  puzzling  over  these  questions.  One  end 
has  been  thereby  gained,  for  here  animosity  is  kindled 
against  Germany,  and  there  downright  hatred  against 
England."     {ib.  v.  405.) 

Nor  had  Lord  Clarendon  been  many  days  in  Prussia 
before  he  discovered  the  truth  of  the  Prince's  warning.  He 
became  deeply  concerned  at  the  bad  effect  produced  by  the 
Times  articles,  and  on  October  21,  1861,  in  a  letter  to  the 
Queen,  spoke  of  "  the  enormous  and  wanton  mischief  done 
by  the  articles  in  the  Times,  which  offended  the  whole  nation, 
and  particularly  the  Army."  The  mischief  so  done  he  de- 
scribed as  "  incalculable,"  and  it  was  probably  his  suggestion 
that  the  Queen  should  call  Lord  Palmerston's  attention  to  it 
which  led  to  an  improvement  of  tone.     (ib.  v.  399,  400.) 

And  the  tragedy  of  it  was  that,  with  this  bad  feeling 
engendered  between  England  and  Germany,  the  Prince,  who 
had  always  aimed  at  their  mutual  friendship,  was  swept 
from  the  scene.  Great  as  was  the  power  his  position  gave 
him,  the  power  of  the  Press  proved  greater.  It  sowed  the 
dragon's  teeth  of  1914. 


CHAPTER    VI 

The  Queen  and  the  Italian  Revolution 

The  close  connection  between  home  and  foreign  politics  is 
well  shown  by  the  incident  of  Orsini's  attempt  on  the  life 
of  Napoleon,  with  which  the  year  1858  began.  Swift  panic 
and  anger  seized  both  England  and  France,  as  certain  French 
colonels  wrote  insolently  of  a  country  which  harboured  and 
protected  revolutionary  assassins,  and  the  English  Press 
flared  up  in  response.  Persigny,  the  French  ambassador, 
was  "  much  alarmed  at  the  state  of  public  feeling  with  respect 
to  the  refugees,"  and  said  that,  in  default  of  concessions  by 
England,  war  was  inevitable.  (Malmesbury's  Memoirs,  ii. 
94.)  On  February  2  Greville  described  our  Foreign  Minister, 
Lord  Clarendon,  as  haunted  with  the  fear  of  the  French 
marching  50,000  men  at  a  moment's  notice  to  Cherbourg, 
and  being  transported  across  the  Channel  by  abundant  war 
steamers,  whilst  we  had  neither  soldiers  nor  ships  to  defend 
us  against  them.  (viii.  161.)  No  amount  of  command  of 
the  sea  ever  lessens  such  fears  ;  and  few  there  then  were 
who,  like  Lord  Malmesbury,  from  long  acquaintance  with 
the  Emperor  trusted  in  his  good  sense  and  in  his  "  un- 
doubted disposition "  to]  keep  the  peace  with  England. 
(Memoirs,  ii.  97.) 

Lord  Palmerston,  anxious  to  calm  the  storm,  brought 
in  a  Conspiracy  Bill  in  the  sense  desired  by  the  French,  but 
was  beaten  on  February  19  by  a  majority  of  19  on  Milner 
Gibson's  amendment.  Though  he  is  said  to  have  made  an 
intemperate  speech,  and  even  to  have  shaken  his  fist  at  the 
Manchester  clique,  he  failed  to  save  the  Government ;  for, 
although  the  Queen  begged  Lord  Palmerston  to  reconsider 
his  resignation,  the  Cabinet  insisted  on  it,  and  thus  the 
Conservatives  came  into  power  under  Lord  Derby  for  the 

*47 


248  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

second  time,  with  Lord  Malmesbury  for  Foreign  Minister  in 
the  place  of  Lord  Clarendon. 

But  the  war  fever  continued  to  rage.  On  February  21, 
1858,  a  crowd  of  20,000  went  to  Hyde  Park,  and  shouted, 
"  Down  with  the  French  !  "  (Martin,  iv.  192.)  Persigny 
was  "  furious  "  at  the  change  of  Government,  and  thwarted 
Lord  Malmesbury's  efforts  for  better  relations  between  the 
angry  countries  ;  whilst  the  Press  did  its  best  to  keep  the 
anger  alive.  On  March  20  Lord  Derby  begged  Greville 
to  use  his  influence  with  the  Times  to  abstain  from  articles 
about  France  which  "  provoked  the  French  to  madness  "  ; 
Delane's  answer  being  that  it  was  hard  to  leave  the  French 
Press  unanswered,  (viii.  182.)  But  within  three  weeks  the 
good  sense  of  Lord  Malmesbury  on  the  one  side  and  of  Walewski 
on  the  other  effected  a  settlement,  and  the  soreness  that 
remained  was  still  further  reduced  by  the  wisdom  shown  by 
the  Emperor  in  sending  the  Due  de  Malokoff,  of  Crimean  fame, 
to  supersede  Persigny  at  the  Court  of  St.  James's. 

For  the  time  the  completeness  of  Palmerston's  fall  might 
have  led  his  adversaries  to  hope  that  it  would  prove  final. 
The  Prince,  writing  to  Stockmar  on  February  22,  described 
him  as  having  become  "  the  most  unpopular  of  men,"  and 
as  hooted  down  in  the  Commons  after  his  defeat,  (ib. 
iv.  192.)  Writing  again  on  September  4  he  spoke  of  Pal- 
merston's extraordinary  unpopularity  as  "  the  feature  "  of 
the  Session  :  "  The  House  would  hardly  listen  to  him  if  he 
spoke,  and  frequently  received  him  with  hooting."  The 
Prince  gloated  over  his  fall.  He  wondered  how  "  the  man 
who  was  without  rhyme  or  reason  stamped  as  the  only 
English  statesman,  the  champion  of  liberty,  the  man  of  the 
people,  etc.  etc.,  now  without  his  having  changed  in  one 
respect,  having  still  the  same  virtues  and  the  same  faults 
that  he  always  had,  young  and  vigorous  in  his  seventy-fifth 
year,  and  having  succeeded  in  his  policy,  is  now  considered 
the  man  of  intrigue,  past  his  work,  etc.  etc. — in  fact,  hated  ! 
and  this  throughout  the  country."     (Letters,  iii.  381.) 

Suspicions  of  Napoleon  revived  with  full  force  in  1859, 
when  collision  between  Austria  and  France  in  Italy  was 
clearly  imminent.  The  situation  is  made  clear  by  the 
Queen's  letter  to  her  uncle  on  February  2.     The  speech  for 


The  Queen  and  the  Italian  Revolution     249 

the  opening  of  Parliament  had  not  been  easy,  "  as  the  feeling 
against  the  Emperor  here  is  very  strong.  I  think  yet  that  if 
Austria  is  strong  and  well  prepared,  and  Germany  strong  and 
well  inclined  toward  us  (as  Prussia  certainly  is),  France  will 
not  be  so  eager  to  attempt  what  I  firmly  believe  would  end 
in  the  Emperor's  downfall."  (ib.  iii.  401.)  She  sent  by 
Lord  Cowley  an  autograph  letter  to  the  Emperor  of  Austria, 
offering  her  good  offices  in  the  interests  of  peace.  (Martin, 
iv.  392.)  And  the  Prince  on  March  1  sent  a  member  of  the 
Prussian  Royal  Family  a  letter  warning  against  precipitate 
assistance  to  Austria  in  Italy,  and  indicating  a  line  of  political 
restraint  which  was  actually  adopted  by  the  Prussian 
Chamber,     (ib.  iv.  397-8.) 

The  Italian  question,  which  then  developed  so  rapidly, 
was  destined  to  put  a  severe  strain  on  our  Constitutional 
machinery.  The  Conservative  Cabinet  and  the  Court  were 
all  for  peace  and  neutrality  in  the  imminent  quarrel.  "  I 
care  for  neither  Austria  nor  France,"  wrote  Lord  Malmesbury, 
"  but  Lord  Derby  and  I  are  determined  to  use  every  effort 
to  prevent  war,  which  would  cost  100.000  lives  and  desolate 
the  fairest  parts  of  Europe."  (ii.  148,  January  12,  1859.) 
He  told  Lord  Cowley,  our  ambassador  at  Paris,  that  "  the 
great  duty  of  every  honest  man  must  be  to  prevent  the 
scourge  which  two  or  three  unprincipled  men  would  inflict 
on  mankind  for  their  personal  profit."  But  the  French 
Emperor,  wishing  for  something  more  than  neutrality,  was 
very  desirous  of  getting  Lord  Palmerston  back  into  power, 
as  more  anti-Austrian  in  his  sympathy  than  the  party  led  by 
Lord  Derby,  whose  Government  might  fall  at  any  moment, 
and  did  in  fact  fall  before  the  summer  was  over.  He  there- 
fore did  all  he  could  to  upset  the  Tory  ministry,  making  special 
use  of  the  Morning  Post.  On  November  2,  1852,  Walewski 
had  admitted  to  Lord  Malmesbury  "  that  the  French  Govern- 
ment paid  the  Morning  Post,  and  that  he  saw  Borthwick, 
the  editor,  every  day  "  (i.  362) ;  and  on  January  26,  1859, 
the  incredible  fact  is  vouched  for  by  Lord  Malmesbury 
that  the  same  paper  received  orders  from  the  French  emperor 
to  attack  him  on  every  possible  occasion  :  "  Mr.  Borthwick, 
the  editor,  saw  him  at  Paris,  and  got  his  orders  from  himself." 
(ii.  151.)     So  an  article  of  January  17  violently  accused  the 


250  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Foreign  Secretary  of  forming  a  German  league  against 
France,  and  every  day  that  paper  became  more  violent 
against  the  peaceful  policy  pursued  by  him. 

But  precipitate  action  by  Austria  put  an  end  to  all  hopes 
of  peace.  When  on  April  19,  1859,  she  threatened  hostilities 
unless  Sardinia  disarmed,  and  on  Sardinia's  refusal  sent  her 
troops  across  the  Ticino,  Lord  Derby  told  the  Queen  that  all 
we  could  do  was  to  protest  strongly  against  Austria's  action. 
The  Queen  agreed  with  this  policy,  but  her  letter  to  her 
uncle  on  April  26  shows  her  real  feelings  :  "  I  have  no  hope 
of  peace  left.  Though  it  is  originally  the  wicked  folly  of 
Russia  and  France  that  has  brought  about  this  fearful 
crisis,  it  is  the  madness  and  blindness  of  Austria  which  have 
brought  on  a  war  now.  It  has  put  them  in  the  wrong,  and 
entirely  changed  the  feeling  here,  which  was  all  that  one 
could  desire,  into  the  most  vehement  sympathy  for  Sardinia, 
though  we  hope  now  again  to  be  able  to  throw  the  blame 
of  the  war  on  France,  who  now  won't  hear  of  mediation." 
{Letters,  hi.  419.) 

Public  opinion  had  indeed  changed.  It  had  been  strongly 
Austrian  at  first,  as  Lord  Granville  described  it  to  Lord 
Canning  in  a  letter  dated  February  9,  1859  :  "  I  remarked 
that  in  the  Lords,  whenever  I  said  anything  in  favour  of  the 
Emperor  or  the  Italians,  the  House  became  nearly  sea-sick, 
while  they  cheered  anything  the  other  way  as  if  pearls 
were  dropping  from  my  lips."  (Fitzmaurice's  Granville, 
i.  324.) 

Evidently  the  Court  regretfully  abandoned  its  Austrian 
sympathies,  and  at  bottom  regarded  France  as  the  enemy. 
On  April  29  the  Queen  wrote  to  Lord  Derby  that  it  "  would 
not  be  morally  defensible  to  restrain  Austria  from  defending 
herself  while  she  can,"  and  suggested  a  protest  against  the 
conduct  of  Sardinia.  And  the  growing  divergence  of  view 
is  well  shown  by  the  Prince's  letter  of  the  same  date,  where  he 
says  of  himself  and  the  Queen  :  "  We  work  day  and  night, 
doing  everything  we  can  to  avert  war.  .  .  .  We  are  greatly 
pleased  with  our  Ministers  in  these  trying  circumstances.  .  .  . 
Palmerston,  on  the  other  hand,  is  out  and  out  Napoleonide, 
maintains  France  to  be  right  on  all  points.  .  .  .  Clarendon 
is   of   preciselv  the   opposite   opinion."     [Martin,   iv.    434.) 


The  Queen  and  the  Italian  Revolution     251 

"  Palmerston  continues  to  be  wholly  French,"  he  wrote  to 
Stockmar  on  May  12,  "  thinks  everything  right  which  the 
Emperor  does,  and  that  we  are  all  wrong  in  not  going  hand  in 
hand  with  him.  The  country's  feeling  is  entirely  the  other 
way,  and  its  instincts  sound  ;  it  asks  leave  to  form  a  Volun- 
teer corps,  and  to  be  permitted  to  arm  itself.  This  was 
granted  yesterday."     (ib.  iv.  443.) 

The  defeat  of  Lord  Derby's  Government  early  in  1859 
greatly  distressed  the  Court.  "  I  am  thoroughly  disgusted," 
wrote  the  Prince  to  Stockmar  on  March  23,  "  and  yet  I  have 
just  completed  for  the  Princess  Royal  a  treatise  on  Con- 
stitutional Government.  It  is  dealt  with  here  just  at  this 
moment  with  an  utter  absence  of  moral  principle."  (ib. 
iv.  410.)  After  a  seven  nights'  debate,  beginning  on  March 
21,  Lord  John  Russell's  amendment  to  the  Derby  Reform 
Bill  was  carried  by  330  to  291,  and  on  April  4  Lord  Derby 
resigned.  The  Queen  wrote  of  herself  on  the  19th  as  "  dread- 
fully disgusted  with  politics  and  Europe."  (ib.  iv.  427.) 
The  dissolution  that  followed,  though  it  increased  the  Con- 
servative majority,  yet  left  it  at  the  mercy  of  that  com- 
bination between  the  forces  of  Lord  Palmerston  and  Lord 
John  Russell  which  their  recent  reconciliation  made  possible. 
The  Queen's  political  neutrality  was  affected  by  her  foreign 
sympathies,  for  she  wrote  on  May  3  to  her  uncle  :  "  Here  the 
Elections  are  not  as  satisfactory  as  could  be  wished,  but  the 
Government  still  think  they  will  have  a  clear  gain  of  25  to 
30  seats,  which  will  make  a  difference  of  50  or  60  on  a  Division. 
It  gives,  unfortunately,  no  majority  ;  still  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  the  Opposition  are  very  much  divided.  .  .  . 
Lord  John  has  been  holding  moderate  and  prudent  language 
on  Foreign  Affairs,  whereas  Lord  Palmerston  has  made  bad 
and  mischievous  speeches,  but  not  at  all  in  accordance  with 
the  feelings  of  the  country.  The  country  wishes  for  strict 
neutrality,  but  strong  defences,"  and  she  ended  by  saying 
how  she  and  the  Prince  were  by  all  these  cares  "  well  fagged 
and  worked  and  worried."     (Letters,  iii.  424.) 

So  when  the  expected  happened  on  June  10,  1859,  and  she 
heard  from  Mr.  Disraeli  that  the  second  Derby  Government 
had  been  beaten  by  13  on  a  hostile  amendment  to  the 
Address,   she  described  herself  in  reply   as   "  though   fully 


252  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

prepared  "  for  the  event,  yet  "  very  much  grieved  "  by  it. 
(Letters,  iii.  436.) 

Meantime,  whilst  our  domestic  politics  were  in  this 
turmoil,  the  war  was  in  full  swing,  and  Germany  was  bursting 
with  desire  to  join  in  the  fray  on  the  side  of  Austria.  On 
April  30  the  Hanoverian  Minister  in  London  said  openly 
that  Germany  ought  to  declare  war  on  France  at  once,  and 
told  Malmesbury  that  the  Germans  were  very  anxious  to  do 
so.  (Memoirs,  ii.  176.)  The  Duke  of  Saxe-Coburg,  whom 
Malmesbury  met  at  Windsor,  was  "  red  hot,"  and  very 
eager  to  command  the  Prussian  Army.  He  said  that  Prussia 
could  not  resist  the  pressure  of  public  opinion,  and  his  aide- 
de-camp  expressed  the  hope  that  the  Austrians  would  be 
beaten,  as  then  all  Germany  would  rise  as  one  man  and  invade 
France.  It  must  be  remembered  that  this  "  red-hot  "  Duke 
was  the  Prince  Consort's  brother.  Count  Vitzthum,  the 
Saxon  Minister,  told  Lord  Malmesbury  that,  if  Austria  were 
defeated,  nothing  would  prevent  Germany  from  rising, 
and  a  victory  of  the  Allies  would  set  400,000  men  on  the 
march  to  Paris,  (ib.  ii.  182.)  Persigny,  again  French 
ambassador  in  London,  was  "  very  anxious  at  the  menacing 
attitude  of  Germany  and  Prussia,  and  with  reason,"  and 
Malmesbury  noted  how  on  May  18  the  Queen  received  him  on 
his  presentation  "  civilly,  but  coldly,  and  made  no  speech." 
(ib.  ii.  182.) 

Lord  Malmesbury,  who  had  told  the  Duke  of  Saxe- 
Coburg  that,  if  Germany  did  rise  as  one  man  and  invade 
France,  not  one  atom  of  help  would  they  get  from  us,  sent 
a  circular  dispatch  the  same  day  (May  2)  to  all  our  repre- 
sentatives at  German  Courts,  to  warn  the  German  Govern- 
ments that,  should  they  provoke  a  war  with  France,  they 
could  expect  no  help  from  us.  Should  the  French  attack 
their  coasts,  our  Navy  would  not  assist  them.  For  both 
Lord  Malmesbury  and  Walewski  had  been  informed  that 
the  whole  of  the  Prussian  Army  was  to  be  mobilised  in  conse- 
quence of  the  strong  feeling  in  Germany  against  France. 
(ib.  ii.  205-6.)  The  curious  thing  is  that,  though  this  dis- 
patch was  sent  to  Paris,  the  Emperor  never  saw  it.  It  was 
not  till  April  1861  that  Lord  Malmesbury  convinced  him  that 
so  far  had  the   Derby  Government  been  from  planning  a 


The  Queen  and  the  Italian  Revolution     253 

German  Coalition  against  him,  as  he  suspected,  that  it  was 
actually  that  Government  which  had  prevented  Prussia  and 
the  rest  of  Germany  from  joining  Austria,  (ib.  ii.  170,  203.) 
Had  he  not  disliked  Lord  Derby's  Government  from  this 
false  belief  in  its  irreconcilable  hostility  to  the  liberation  of 
Italy  and  to  the  French  Government,  much  of  the  difficulty 
of  the  passing  years  would  have  been  avoided. 

But  in  spite  of   Mnlmesbury's   efforts  the   German   war 
fever  continued.     Thus  the  Times  of  June  1,  commenting  on  ;i 
German  article,  described  all  Germany  as  "  possessed  by  a 
unanimous  uproarious  enthusiasm  for  the  conquest  of  Alsace 
and  Lorraine,  and  for  the  occupation  of  Paris."     (Martin, 
iv.  445.)     The  war  of  1870  all  but  broke  out  in  1859.     And 
there  came  a  perilous  point  when  the  sympathy  of  the  English 
Court  with  Austria,  coincident  with  that  of  Germany,  nearly 
reached  the  war  point  ;    for  Lord  Malmesbury  thus  wrote 
in  his  Diary  for  May  29  :    "  The  Queen  and  Prince  feel  very 
strongly  the  defeat   of  the  Austrians,   and  are  anxious   to 
take  their  part,  but  I  told  Her  Majesty  that  was  quite  im- 
possible ;    this  country  would  not  go  to  war  even  in  support 
of  Italian  independence,  and  there  would  not  be  ten  men 
in  the  House  of  Commons  who  would  do  so  on  behalf  of 
Austria."     (ib.  ii.  184.)     Yet  not  a  hint  of  this  wish  of  the 
Queen  and  Prince  to  go  to  war  with  France  is  given  in  Sir 
Theodore  Martin's  Life  of  the  Prince,  and  the  fact  very  much 
qualifies  their  efforts  after  the  close  of  the  war  in  July  to 
prevent  our  being  involved  in  such  a  Continental  warfare 
as  the  rival  ambitions  of  Continental  Powers  then  made  more 
likely  than  ever.     That  the  Queen  repented  of  her  successful 
efforts  before  the  war  to  restrain  Prussia  from  taking  part 
in  it  is  shown  by  her  letter  to  Lord  John  Russell  of  July  18, 
1859,  in  which  she  said  that  she  felt  strongly  the  responsi- 
bility of  having  from  the  first  urged  Prussia  to  take  no  part 
in  the  war,  and  having  been  very  influential  in  preventing 
her.     (Letters,    iii.    459.)     It    would    seem    therefore    that, 
could  the  Court  have  had  its  way,  we  should  have  hazarded 
a  war  against  France  on  behalf  of  Austria. 

It  was  perhaps  this  antagonism  of  views  which  explains 
the  following  incident.  Lord  Malmesbury  received  a  tele- 
gram from  Prince  Gortschakoff  agreeing  with  his  wish  to 


254  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

localise  the  war  ;  and  Lord  Malmesbury  in  his  reply  said  : 
"  We  are  anxious  to  unite  with  Russia,  not  only  in  localising 
the  war,  but  in  arresting  it."  Whereupon  the  Queen  wrote 
to  him  on  May  20,  1859  :  "  The  Queen  was  much  surprised 
to  receive  the  enclosed  telegram.  An  alliance  with  Russia 
to  localise  and  arrest  the  war  by  joint  interference,  which 
is  here  proposed  to  Russia,  is  a  policy  to  which  the  Queen 
has  not  given  her  sanction,  and  which  would  require  very 
mature  deliberation  before  it  could  ever  be  entertained.  .  .  . 
How  can  we  propose  to  join  Russia,  whom  we  know  to  be 
pledged  to  France  ?  The  Queen  hopes  Lord  Malmesbury 
will  stop  the  communication  of  this  message  to  Prince 
Gortschakoff."     (Letters,  iii.  426.) 

And  the  same  strong  anti- French  feeling  continued  to 
influence  the  Court  throughout  the  ensuing  difficult  years. 
The  Queen's  letters  show  clearly  how  more  and  more  the 
Crown's  right  to  a  dominant  opinion  on  foreign  policy  tended 
to  a  claim  to  actual  control  of  it.  As  illustrative  of  this 
tendency  may  be  quoted  an  interesting  passage  of  arms  be- 
tween the  Queen  and  Lord  Derby  in  reference  to  the  Speech 
from  the  Throne  about  to  be  delivered  on  June  7,  1859,  after 
the  General  Election  ;  the  Queen  writing  as  follows  :  "  The 
Queen  takes  objection  to  the  wording  of  the  two  paragraphs 
about  the  war  and  our  armaments.  As  it  stands,  it  conveys 
the  impression  of  a  determination  on  the  Queen's  part  of 
maintaining  a  neutrality — a  tout  prix — whatever  circum- 
stances may  arise,  which  would  do  harm  abroad,  and  be 
inconvenient  at  home.  What  the  Queen  may  express  is 
her  wish  to  remain  neutral,  and  her  hope  that  circumstances 
may  allow  her  to  do  so.  The  paragraph  about  our  Navy 
makes  our  position  still  more  humble,  as  it  contains  a 
public  apology  for  arming,  and  yet  betrays  fear  of  our  being 
attacked  by  France."  (ib.  iii.  429.)  To  which  Lord  Derby 
made  an  equally  spirited  reply,  assuring  her  of  the  unanimity 
of  the  country  to  observe  a  righteous  neutrality  in  the  im- 
pending war,  and  resolute  against  any  words  that  would 
saddle  the  Government  with  the  charge  of  pro-Austrian 
proclivities.  Also  he  refused  to  recognise  it  as  humiliating 
for  a  great  country,  in  announcing  a  large  increase  of  its 
naval  force,  to  disclaim  any  object  of  aggression.     He  ex- 


The  Queen  and  the  Italian  Revolution     255 

pressed  his  deep  conviction  of  the  danger  that  might  attend 
the  Queen's  suggested  amendments,  and  declared  the  Cabinet 
to  be  unanimous  against  them.  The  difficulty  was  surmounted 
by  each  side  yielding  something  ;  but  no  nation  can  have 
an  effective  voice  over  its  foreign  policy  where  the  Minister 
responsible  to  Parliament  is  controlled  by  an  authority  that 
is  outside  and  above  it. 

Nevertheless,  though  the  Derby  Cabinet  was  no  more 
pro-Austrian  than  the  Liberal  Party,  its  fall  on  June  10, 
1859,  was  a  great  blow  to  the  Court  ;  and  after  a  vain  attempt 
to  induce  Lord  Palmerston  and  Lord  John  to  serve  under 
Lord  Granville,  the  Queen  was  compelled  to  recall  Lord 
Palmerston  to  power,  which  he  was  destined  to  retain  for 
the  next  seven  years.  It  was  hoped  by  the  Court  that 
at  all  events  Lord  John  Russell  would  not  be  Foreign  Secre- 
tary ;  as  before  in  1851,  both  the  Queen  and  the  Prince 
desired  the  post  for  Lord  Clarendon,  who  took  a  different 
view  from  Palmerston  on  the  Italian  question  (Walpole's 
Russell,  ii.  309)  ;  but  on  June  12  Lord  Palmerston  wrote  to 
the  Queen  that  he  was  "  sorry  to  say  "  that  Lord  John  would 
take  no  other.  (Letters,  iii.  442.)  So  the  difficulty  returned 
of  a  Prime  Minister  and  Foreign  Secretary  at  issue  with  the 
Crown,  the  Ministers  sympathising  with  the  movement  that 
ended  in  the  unification  of  Italy,  and  the  Court  mistrusting 
Napoleon,  and  pulling  in  an  opposite  direction.  The  old 
troubled  relationship  began  anew  that  had  prevailed  from 
1846  to  1851,  when  Lord  John  Russell  had  been  Prime 
Minister  and  Palmerston  Foreign  Minister  ;  the  only  differ- 
ence being  that  from  1859  to  1865  the  positions  were  re- 
versed, Lord  John  being  Foreign  Secretary  and  Palmerston 
Prime  Minister.  But  the  painful  difference  between  them 
and  the  Court  continued  just  the  same. 

It  showed  itself  at  once.  After  the  armistice  between 
Austria  and  France  had  been  signed  on  July  8,  Napoleon 
sought  for  the  "  moral  support  "  of  England  for  effecting  a 
peace,  and  Persigny  went  to  Lord  Palmerston  to  say  that 
the  time  for  mediation  had  come,  and  suggesting  terms  of  peace, 
to  which  Lord  Palmerston  agreed.  The  latter  at  once  rode 
off  to  Richmond  to  tell  Lord  John,  who  was  "  equally  de- 
lighted."    Whereupon  Lord  John  wrote  to  the  Queen  advising 


256  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

her  to  give  such  "  moral  support,"  as  not  affecting  our 
neutrality  even  if  Austria  declined  the  terms.  He  added 
that  such  support  would  probably  end  the  war,  and  that  her 
Ministers  could  not  make  themselves  responsible  for  its 
continuance  by  advising  her  to  refuse  it.  Nevertheless  the 
Queen  somewhat  indignantly  refused  her  consent.  She 
conceived  that  Lord  John  Russell  and  Lord  Palmerston 
"  ought  not  to  ask  her  to  give  her  '  moral  support '  to  one  of 
the  belligerents."  To  help  Napoleon  to  get  the  Austrians 
out  of  Venetia  by  diplomacy  she  regarded  as  inconsistent 
with  our  neutrality.  Meantime  Persigny  had  telegraphed 
to  Paris  the  consent  of  the  British  Government,  and  the 
Emperor  of  Austria,  unaware  of  the  Queen's  refusal,  and 
thinking  himself  thrown  over  by  England  and  Prussia,  ac- 
cepted Napoleon's  terms.  {Letters,  iii.  450 ;  Malmesbury, 
ii.  200.)  Had  the  Emperor  known  of  the  Queen's  refusal, 
how  different  history  might  have  been.  Germany  and  our- 
selves might  have  both  been  involved  in  war  with  France  for 
the  sake  of  Austria,  and  the  whole  history  of  Europe  have 
taken  another  direction. 

But  the  Queen's  refusal  made  no  difference,  and  the 
French  and  Austrian  Emperors  concluded  the  peace  of 
Villafranca  between  themselves  on  July  11,  1859,  much  to 
the  surprise  of  Europe.  As  all  the  military  success,  culminat- 
ing in  the  battle  of  Solferino  on  June  24,  had  been  on  the  side 
of  France,  Napoleon  might  have  exacted  harsher  terms. 
But  he  had  gained  Lombardy  for  Sardinia,  though  Venetia 
still  remained  under  Austrian  rule,  and  the  Dukes  of  Modena 
and  Tuscany  were  to  be  reinstated.  Contemporaries  were 
agreed  that  a  sincere  aversion  from  further  bloodshed  disposed 
Napoleon  to  peace,  but  the  movement  in  Germany  for  a 
march  on  Paris  and  for  the  annexation  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine 
doubtless  also  had  their  weight  with  him. 

The  Queen's  letters  of  this  time  breathe  the  vexation 
which  she  and  the  Prince  felt.  For  their  mistrust  of  Napoleon 
was  profound.  On  July  13  the  Queen  thus  expressed  her 
feelings  to  Lord  John  when  she  heard  of  the  unexpected 
peace  :  Napoleon,  she  said,  "  will  now  probably  omit  no 
occasion  to  cajole  Austria  as  he  has  done  to  Russia,  and 
turn  her  spirit  of  revenge  upon  Prussia  and  Germany — the 


The  Queen  and  the  Italian  Revolution     257 

Emperor's  probable  next  victims.  Should  he  have  rendered 
himself  the  master  of  the  entire  Continent,  the  time  may 
come  for  us  either  to  obey  or  fight  him  with  terrible  odds 
against  us.  This  has  been  the  Queen's  view  from  the  begin- 
ning of  this  complication."  (Letters,  iii.  452.)  She  wrote 
letters  to  Lord  Palmerston  and  to  Lord  John,  both  dated 
July  18.  To  the  former  she  wrote  :  "  The  Queen  is  less 
disappointed  with  the  peace  than  Lord  Palmerston  appears 
to  be,  as  she  never  could  share  his  sanguine  hopes  that  the 
'  Coup  d'6tat  '  and  '  the  Empire  '  could  be  made  subservient 
to  the  establishment  of  independent  nationalities  and  the 
diffusion  of  liberty  and  Constitutional  Government  on  the 
Continent.  .  .  .  The  Emperor  is  entirely  uncontrolled  in 
his  actions.  .  .  .  Our  attempts  to  use  him  for  our  views 
must  prove  a  failure,  as  the  Russian  peace  has  shown." 
(Martin,  iv.  463.)  To  Lord  John  Russell  she  contended 
that  France's  conduct  to  Italy  showed  how  little  Napoleon 
cared  for  Italian  independence  when  for  purposes  of  his  own 
he  brought  on  the  war.  We  had  been  very  responsible  for 
urging  Prussia  against  going  to  war,  and  she  would  "  very 
naturally  look  to  us  not  to  desert  her  when  the  evil  hour  for 
her  came."     (Letters,  iii.  458-9.) 

During  the  ensuing  months  Lord  John's  policy  was  all 
for  "  Italy  and  the  Italians."  He  objected  to  the  restitution 
to  their  respective  Dukes  of  the  Tuscans  and  the  Modenese 
"  as  if  they  were  so  many  firkins  of  butter,"  and  urged 
that  the  decision  should  rest  with  a  Tuscan  representative 
assembly.  He  wished  to  see  Italy  freed  alike  from  French 
as  from  Austrian  troops.  And  as  Austria  naturally  resented 
this  attitude,  some  brisk  correspondence  ensued  between  the 
Queen  and  her  Foreign  Minister.  On  August  21  she  returned 
him  a  draft  :  "  She  is  very  sorry  that  she  cannot  give  her 
approval  to  it.  There  are  many  points  in  it  to  which  she 
cannot  but  feel  the  gravest  objections."  She  protested, 
as  reversing  our  policy  of  non-intervention,  against  our 
promoting  a  scheme  for  a  redistribution  of  the  North  Italian 
territories  and  Governments,     (ib.  iii.  461.) 

Lord  John  replied  two  days  later  that  friendly  advice  was 
not  intervention,  and  that  if  by  such  friendly  advice  we  could 
prevent  a  bloody  and  causeless  war  in  Italy  we  were  bound 

17 


258  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

to  give  it.  Otherwise  we  might  have  to  intervene  ultimately 
either  against  "  the  ruthless  tyranny  of  Austria  or  the  un- 
bridled ambition  of  France." 

On  August  24  the  Queen  thus  addressed  Lord  John  : 
"  The  Queen  is  really  placed  in  a  position  of  much  difficulty, 
giving  her  deep  pain.  She  has  been  obliged  to  object  to  so 
many  drafts  sent  to  her  from  the  Foreign  Office  on  the  Italian 
Question,  and  yet  no  sooner  is  one  withdrawn  or  altered  than 
others  are  submitted  of  exactly  the  same  purport  or  tendency, 
even  if  couched  in  new  words.  The  Queen  has  so  often 
expressed  her  views  that  she  is  almost  reluctant  to  reiterate 
them."  She  begged  him  to  re-peruse  the  two  drafts,  which, 
if  they  had  any  meaning  or  object,  urged  France  to  break 
in  the  treaty  of  Zurich  the  chief  terms  she  had  agreed  to  in 
that  of  Villafranca.  The  formation  of  an  Italian  Confedera- 
tion and  the  return  of  the  Dukes  to  their  Duchies  must  be 
considered  as  compensations  to  Austria  for  her  loss  of  Lom- 
bardy.  The  result  might  be  a  fresh  war  of  Austria  against 
France,  or  a  war  of  France  and  England  against  Austria  :  a 
misfortune  from  which  she  felt  herself  bound  to  protect  her 
country.  She  wished  her  correspondence  to  be  circulated 
amongst  all  the  members  of  the  Cabinet,  to  ascertain  whether 
they  also  would  be  parties  to  the  reversal  of  non-intervention, 
and  to  prevent  these  frequent  discussions  which  were  so  very 
painful  to  her.     (Letters,  iii.  464.) 

The  Prince,  too,  wrote  to  Lord  Granville  on  August  25, 
1859  :  "  You  will  be  sorry  to  hear  that  we  have  had  disputes 
about  drafts  daily  for  the  last  two  weeks.  On  the  Queen's 
refusing  to  sanction  they  were  withdrawn,  but  others  morse 
in  tendency  submitted."     (Fitzmaurice,  i.  354.) 

Lord  Palmerston  was  naturally  "  much  perturbed  and 
annoyed  "  by  this  state  of  things,  whilst  Lord  John  was  "  in 
a  state  of  great  irritation,  said  we  might  as  well  live  under 
a  despotism,  and  threatened  resignation."  (ib.  i.  357.)  A 
Cabinet  was  called,  at  which  Palmerston  spoke  for  Lord 
John,  "  and  bitterly  as  regarded  the  Court,"  but  which 
took  the  side  of  the  Queen,  to  the  smoothing  over  of  matters 
for  the  time.  But  when  the  Queen  was  at  Balmoral,  and 
Lord  John  close  by  at  Abergeldie,  the  Prince  told  Lord 
Clarendon  that  the  Royal  stay  in  the  North  had  been  em- 


The  Queen  and  the  Italian  Revolution     259 

bittered  by  the  "  most  painful  warfare  "  with  Lord  John 
and  Lord  Palmerston.  (ib.  i.  360.)  The  following  letter 
shows  it  :  "  Lord  John  Russell  will  not  be  surprised  if  the 
dispatches  of  Lord  Cowley  and  drafts  by  Lord  John  in  answer 
to  them  have  given  her  much  pain."  She  complained  that 
the  very  advice  which  she  had  objected  to  when  officially 
brought  before  her  for  her  sanction,  which  had  been  ob- 
jected to  by  the  Cabinet,  and  which  Lord  John  had  agreed 
to  withdraw,  had  been  given  by  "  direct  communication  of 
the  Prime  Minister  through  the  French  ambassador  with  the 
Emperor."  "  What  is  the  use  of  the  Queen's  open  and, 
she  fears,  sometimes  wearisome  correspondence  with  her 
Ministers,  what  the  use  of  long  deliberations  of  the  Cabinet, 
if  the  very  policy  can  be  carried  out  by  indirect  means  which 
is  set  aside  officially,  and  what  protection  has  the  Queen 
against  this  practice  ?  "     (Letters,  iii.  469.) 

The  Queen  had  a  quite  legitimate  fear  that  we  might  be 
dragged  into  a  war.  She  disapproved  of  a  plan  for  an 
alliance  of  England  and  France  for  the  purpose  of  overruling 
Austria,  if  the  Duchies  to  which  she  was  the  heir  were  given 
to  Sardinia,  and  Austria  should  object.  "  The  Queen  thinks 
it  incumbent  upon  her  not  to  leave  Lord  John  Russell  in 
ignorance  of  the  fact  that  she  could  not  approve  such  a 
policy  reversing  our  whole  position  since  the  commence- 
ment of  the  war."  (September  6,  1859,  ib.  iii.  470.) 
On  the  same  day  she  protested  to  Lord  Palmerston  against 
an  attempt  to  convince  Napoleon  that  it  would  be  for  his 
interest  to  break  his  word  to  the  Emperor  of  Austria  as 
reflecting  on  the  honour  of  her  own  Government.  "  She 
must  insist  upon  this  being  distinctly  guarded  against." 

In  his  reply  of  September  7  the  Foreign  Secretary  felt 
that  "  he  must  offer  to  Your  Majesty  such  advice  as  he  thinks 
best  adapted  to  secure  the  interests  and  dignity  of  Your 
Majesty  and  the  country.  He  will  be  held  by  Parliament 
responsible  for  that  advice.  It  will  be  always  in  Your 
Majesty's  power  to  reject  it  altogether."  (ib.  iii.  472.)  He 
denied  the  charge  made  by  the  Queen  that  he  had  ever  con- 
cealed his  opinions  from  his  colleagues  in  the  Cabinet.  Lord 
Palmerston  in  a  letter  of  September  9  disclaimed  the  charge 
of  an  attempt  to  persuade  Napoleon  to  break  his  word  to  the 


260  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Emperor  of  Austria.  And  if  Her  Majesty  meant  to  debar 
him  from  all  communications  with  Foreign  Ministers  except 
the  formal  decisions  of  the  Government,  such  a  curtailment 
of  the  constitutional  functions  of  his  office  would  make  his 
further  service  impossible.     {Letters,  iii.  474.) 

In  all  this  unfortunate  wrangle  the  point  of  interest  is 
not  so  much  the  antagonism  of  the  views  supported  on  either 
side  as  the  claim  of  the  Crown  to  supervise  or  even  override 
the  decisions  of  Ministers  responsible  to  Parliament.  After 
the  Treaty  of  Zurich  of  November  10,  1859,  embodying  the 
terms  of  Villafranca,  had  been  signed,  the  Queen  on 
December  1  begged  Lord  John  Russell  to  make  it  quite  clear 
to  the  Emperor  that  he  had  no  chance  of  getting  us  to  join 
him  in  any  renewed  war  with  Austria  ;  but  Lord  John  was 
of  another  mind.  On  the  same  day  he  told  the  Queen  in 
reply  that  "  Lord  John  Russell  is  certainly  not  prepared  to 
say  that  a  case  may  not  arise  when  the  interests  of  Great 
Britain  might  not  require  that  she  should  give  material 
support  to  the  Emperor  of  the  French,"  as  such  an  alliance 
might  prevent  Austria  from  disturbing  the  peace  of  Europe. 
To  which  the  Queen,  replying  next  day,  said  that  she  was 
extremely  sorry  that  Lord  John  contemplated  the  possibility 
of  our  joining  France  in  such  a  war.  She  would  not  conceal 
from  him  "  that  under  no  pretence  would  she  depart  from 
her  position  of  neutrality  in  the  Italian  quarrel,  and  inflict 
upon  her  country  and  Europe  the  calamity  of  war."  (ib. 
iii.  478.)  In  the  Congress  that  was  to  follow,  but  which  did 
not,  she  put  her  veto  on  Sir  James  Hudson,  who  as  our 
Minister  at  Turin  had  shown  his  strong  sympathy  with 
Cavour's  policy,  from  being  our  second  representative,  as 
suggested  by  the  Prime  Minister.  She  reminded  Lord  John 
that  in  a  second  war  with  France  Austria  might  be  sup- 
ported by  Germany,  and  that  in  that  case  Napoleon  would 
not  have  played  his  game  badly,  if  he  could  get  the  alliance 
of  England  to  sanction  and  foster  his  attack  on  the  Rhine, 
which  would  inevitably  follow.  That,  she  believed,  was 
France's  cherished  object,  and  its  success  was  certain  if  we 
became  her  dupes.  In  any  case  she  held  that  it  was  to  war 
in  support  of  Napoleon  to  which  we  were  being  driven,  and 
she  was  determined  to  hold  to  her  neutrality  in  the  Italian 


The  Queen  and  the  Italian  Revolution     261 

intrigue,  wars,  and  revolutions.  (ib.  iii.  480.)  As  the 
Prince  put  it  in  a  letter  to  Lord  Granville  of  December  5, 
1859,  the  war  that  seemed  in  prospect  "  must  lead  to  our 
being  the  allies  of  France  in  her  attack  on  the  Rhine,  should 
Germany  not  abandon  Austria  a  second  time,  and  this  is 
giving  the  Emperor  the  whole  game  into  his  hands,  and 
placing  us,  when  he  shall  have  become  master  of  Europe,  at 
his  mercy."  (Fitzmaurice,  i.  368.)  But  the  Court  forgot, 
in  its  strong  mistrust  of  France,  that  in  the  May  of  that 
same  year  Germany  had  mobilised  the  greater  part  of  her 
vast  army,  and  that  a  powerful  party  in  that  army  had  been 
then  clamorous  to  be  led  to  Paris,  in  the  hope  of  crippling 
France  for  the  rest  of  the  century.     (Martin,  iv.  445.) 

The  year  1860  began  with  a  continuance  of  different 
views  on  foreign  policy  between  the  Court  and  Lord  Pal- 
merston  and  his  Foreign  Secretary,  Lord  John  Russell. 
Palmerston,  who  on  November  4,  1859,  had  expressed  to 
Lord  John  Russell  the  great  distrust  he  had  lately  come  to 
entertain  of  Napoleon  (Ashley's  Life,  ii.  187),  in  his  memor- 
andum of  January  5,  1860  on  foreign  policy,  deprecated 
imputations  on  his  good  faith,  and  counselled,  even  at  the 
risk  of  war  with  Austria,  an  English  alliance  with  France 
and  Sardinia,  (ib.  ii.  172-80.)  An  offensive  and  defensive 
alliance  with  France,  and  a  joint  guarantee  of  the  independ- 
ence of  Central  Italy,  as  the  price  of  the  Commercial  Treaty 
with  France,  came  before  the  Cabinet  early  in  January,  and 
though  defended  by  Palmerston,  Lord  John  Russell,  and 
Gladstone,  was  rejected  by  a  majority,  owing,  it  was 
rumoured,  to  the  influence  of  the  Court.  (Malmesbury,  ii. 
213.)  Fortunately  the  course  of  events  prevented  a  differ- 
ence on  this  salient  point  from  coming  to  an  open  rupture. 

Nevertheless  fundamentally  different  opinions  about  Italy 
continued  to  cause  difficulties  of  considerable  magnitude. 
As  the  Queen  had  said  in  a  letter  of  July  24,  1859,  "  she  would 
be  most  happy  if  anything  can  be  done  to  improve  the 
condition  of  Italy  "  (Martin,  iv.  478)  ;  like  the  Cabinet,  she 
"  would  have  rejoiced  to  see  a  free  and  strong  Italy  "  (ib 
iv.  482) ;  but  Austria  held  the  first  place  in  her  affections. 
On  January  11, 1860,  the  Queen  wrote  to  her  Foreign  Secretary 
that  she  would  have  Sardinia  as  well  as  Austria  and  France 


262  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

invited  not  to  interfere  with  Italy  ;  for  Austria  had  rever- 
sionary rights  in  Tuscany  and  Modena,  whilst  Sardinia  had 
none  at  all.  Austria  could  not  allow  Sardinia  to  "  possess 
herself  of  her  inheritance  under  her  very  eyes."  To  which 
Lord  John  replied  on  the  same  day,  reminding  her  that  the 
doctrines  of  the  Revolution  of  1688  could  "  hardly  be  aban- 
doned in  these  days  by  Your  Majesty's  present  advisers. 
According  to  those  doctrines  all  power  held  by  Sovereigns 
may  be  forfeited  by  misconduct,  and  each  nation  is  the 
judge  of  its  own  internal  government."  He  could  not  abjure 
those  opinions  or  act  against  them.     (Letters,  iii.  489.) 

The  Queen  once  said  of  Lord  John  that  he  would  have 
been  better  company  if  he  had  had  a  third  topic  of  conversa- 
tion beside  the  Constitution  of  1688 — and  himself  (Quarterly 
Review,  April  1901,  333) ;  and  on  this  occasion  she  replied 
very  fairly  that  she  could  not  make  out  what  those  doctrines 
of  1688  had  to  do  with  Sardinia's  non-interference  in  Italy, 
or  how  this  could  oblige  Lord  John  to  abjure  those  doctrines. 
To  her  uncle  in  Belgium  she  wrote  :  "  Affairs  are  in  a  sad  and 
complicated  state,  and  though  we  modify  matters  as  much  as 
we  can,  we  can't  entirely  keep  our  Ministers  (the  two)  from 
doing  something.''''     (Letters,  iii.  490.) 

The  annexation  of  Nice  and  Savoy  from  Sardinia  by 
Napoleon  early  in  1860  was  a  fair  cause  of  triumph  to  the 
Court  over  "  the  two."  The  Court  shared  in  the  general 
indignation  provoked  by  the  transaction.  At  the  meeting 
between  Napoleon  and  Cavour,  the  Sardinian  Minister,  at 
Plombieres  in  1858,  though  the  cession  of  Savoy  to  France 
had  been  the  price  agreed  upon  for  French  aid  to  free  Italy 
from  the  Alps  to  the  Adriatic,  Cavour  "  pretended  to 
be  furious  when  the  event  happened."  (Malmesbury,  ii. 
199,  July  13,  1859  ;  ii.  226,  April  19,  1860.)  So  the  Queen 
could  write  to  Lord  John  Russell  on  February  9,  1860  : 
"  We  have  been  made  regular  dupes  (which  the  Queen  appre- 
hended and  warned  against  all  along).  The  return  to  an 
English  alliance,  universal  peace,  respect  for  treaties,  com- 
mercial prosperity,  etc.  etc.,  were  blinds  to  cover  before 
Europe  a  policy  of  spoliation."  France's  claim  to  compensa- 
tion for  adding  to  the  territory  of  Sardinia  by  the  annexa- 
tion of  Savoy  was  "  wanting  in  all  excuses.  .  .  .  Sardinia 


The  Queen  and  the  Italian  Revolution     263 

is  being  aggrandised  solely  at  the  expense  of  Austria  and 
the  House  of  Lorraine,  and  France  is  to  be  compensated." 
(Martin,  v.  27.) 

Fresh  proposals  from  Napoleon  led  the  Queen  to  repeat 
her  opinion  that  they  had  not  the  good  of  Italy  at  heart,  but 
only  the  Emperor's  own  aggrandisement,  to  the  detriment  of 
Europe.  Lord  John  wrote,  on  February  9,  1860  :  "  Lord 
John  Russell  unfortunately  does  not  partake  Your  Majesty's 
opinions  in  regard  to  Italy,  and  he  is  unwilling  to  obtrude 
on  Your  Majesty  unnecessary  statement  of  his  views.  .  .  . 
Whatever  may  be  the  consequence,  the  liberation  of  the  Italian 
people  from  a  foreign  yoke  is,  in  the  eyes  of  Lord  Palmerston 
and  Lord  John  Russell,  an  increase  of  freedom  and  happiness 
at  which  as  well-wishers  of  mankind  they  cannot  but  rejoice." 
(Letters,  iii.  494.)  The  Queen  took  great  umbrage  at  this 
letter,  which  she  forwarded  to  Lord  Palmerston  with  com- 
plaints of  its  tone  :  "It  was  not  the  kind  of  communication 
which  the  Foreign  Secretary  ought  to  make,  when  asked  by 
his  Sovereign  to  explain  the  views  of  the  Cabinet  upon  a 
question  so  important  and  momentous  as  the  annexation  of 
Savoy  to  France."  She  had  given  no  opinion  on  Italian 
liberation  from  a  foreign  yoke,  nor  need  she  protest  against 
the  covert  insinuation  that  she  was  no  well-wisher  of  man- 
kind and  indifferent  to  its  freedom  and  happiness.  But  she 
must  refer  to  the  constitutional  position  of  Ministers  towards 
herself.  They  were  responsible  for  their  advice  to  her, 
but  they  were  bound  fully,  respectfully,  and  openly  to  place 
before  her  the  grounds  of  their  advice  so  as  to  enable  her 
to  judge  whether  she  could  assent  to  it  or  not.  "  The 
Queen  must  demand  that  respect  which  is  due  from  a  Minister 
to  his  Sovereign.  As  the  Queen  must  consider  the  enclosed 
letter  as  deficient  in  it,  she  thinks  Lord  John  Russell  might 
probably  wish  to  reconsider  it."  (ib.  iii.  495.)  And  that 
evening  Lord  John  apologised.  Wherein  he  doubtless  acted 
rightly.  But  what  is  of  chief  interest  is  the  Queen's  claim 
to  assent  or  not  to  Ministerial  advice  in  foreign  policy.  Her 
relations  with  Lord  John  Russell  were  almost  as  much  strained 
during  this  period  as  they  had  been  with  Palmerston  from 
1846  to  1851,  and  the  fact  shows  a  real  flaw  in  the  working 
of  our  system.      How  strained  those  relations  were,  perhaps 


264  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

the  yet  unpublished  letters  of  the  Queen  and  Lord  John  will 
some  day  more  fully  reveal. 

Despite  the  Commercial  Treaty  ratified  on  February  4, 
1860,  between  England  and  France,  the  Savoy  question 
nearly  wrecked  the  alliance.  Lord  Cowley,  our  ambas- 
sador at  Paris,  had  a  heated  talk  with  Napoleon,  of  which 
he  sent  a  long  report  to  Lord  John  Russell,  who  forwarded  it 
to  the  Queen.  Her  comment  in  reply  was  :  "  The  circum- 
stance is  useful,  as  proving  that  the  Emperor,  if  met  with 
firmness,  is  more  likely  to  retract  than  if  cajoled,  and  that  the 
statesmen  of  Europe  have  much  to  answer  for,  having  spoiled 
him  for  the  last  ten  years  by  submission  and  cajolery.  .  .  . 
If  Europe  were  to  stand  together,  and  make  a  united  de- 
claration against  the  annexation  of  Savoy,  the  evil  might 
still  be  arrested,  but  less  than  that  will  not  suffice."  (Martin, 
v.  42.)  This  allusion  to  the  last  ten  years  proves  that  the 
Court's  mistrust  of  Napoleon  covered  the  whole  period  of  the 
Crimean  War,  when  he  was  our  beloved  ally.  The  Prince 
writing  to  Stockmar  on  March  17  claimed  that  the  Queen 
and  himself  had  all  along  seen  the  danger  which  lay  in  the 
English  policy,  and  foreseeing  what  would  happen  had 
pointed  it  out  to  the  Ministry  in  vain.     (ib.  v.  50.) 

The  Savoy  incident  was  chief  among  the  causes  which 
tended  to  convert  both  the  Prime  Minister  and  the  Foreign 
Minister  to  the  Court's  suspicions  of  Napoleon.  At  all 
events,  Lord  Palmerston  fell  in  with  the  popular  demand  for 
increased  armaments,  fortifications,  and  volunteering  ;  and 
when  Gladstone  threatened  to  leave  the  Cabinet  in  conse- 
quence, Palmerston  wrote  to  the  Queen  that  it  was  better  to 
lose  Mr.  Gladstone  than  to  lose  Portsmouth.  Lord  John's 
speech  of  March  26,  two  days  after  the  treaty  of  the  cession 
of  Savoy  had  been  signed,  in  which  he  even  hinted  at  co- 
operation with  other  Powers  against  France  in  certain  con- 
tingencies, still  further  helped  to  reconcile  the  Court  to  the 
erring  "  two."  The  Queen  was  so  delighted  that  she  wrote 
next  day  to  compliment  Lord  John  on  his  speech,  and  made 
no  concealment  of  her  dislike  of  the  French  alliance.  "  It 
is  a  belief  in  this  alliance,"  she  wrote,  "  which  makes  the 
rest  of  Europe  powerless  and  helpless.  ...  As  the  English 
Press   and   general    public   were   favourable   to   the   Italian 


The  Queen  and  the  Italian  Revolution     265 

Revolution,  and  the  loss  of  the  Italian  provinces  by  Austria, 
and  are  supposed  to  be  so  with  regard  to  the  separation 
of  Hungary  from  Austria,  and  of  Poland  from  Prussia,  the 
Emperor  Napoleon  has  the  more  chance  of  keeping  up  the 
distrust  of  the  Continental  Powers  in  England.  .  .  .  Once 
reassured  as  to  the  views  of  England,  they  would,  the  Queen 
feels  certain,  readily  rally  round  her,  and  follow  her  lead." 
(ib.  v.  71.)  A  European  Coalition  against  France  was 
within  the  bounds  of  possibility,  could  the  Court  have  pre- 
vailed over  "  the  two." 

The  Prince,  writing  to  Stockmar  on  April  15,  1861,  said 
about  foreign  politics  that  it  was  impossible  to  discover  any 
principle  in  them  ;  "  but  one  thing  is  very  plain,  that  all 
through  the  anti-German  side  is  taken  with  passionate 
warmth.  What  pain  this  causes  me  you  may  imagine.  I 
can  do  nothing,  and  yet  I  know  full  well  the  issue  must  be 
to  the  advantage  of  France  and  the  ultimate  detriment  of 
England."  (ib.  v.  340.)  But  Ministers  came  tardily  to 
these  suspicions  of  the  Court,  Lord  John  being  governed 
by  the  feeling  expressed  by  him  in  1855  that  "  the  Emperor 
of  the  French  had  been  to  us  the  most  faithful  ally  that  had 
ever  wielded  the  sceptre  or  ruled  the  destinies  of  France." 
(Walpole's  Russell,  ii.  263.)  And  probably  this  was  fortunate 
for  the  peace  of  the  world. 

When  the  French  Emperor  suggested  a  Congress  to  settle 
the  questions  at  issue  in  consequence  of  the  war,  the  Queen 
replied  to  a  letter  from  Lord  John  Russell  in  April  1860  that 
"  she  must  say  that  she  would  consider  it  the  deepest  degrada- 
tion to  this  country  if  she  was  compelled  to  appear  at  the 
Emperor's  Congress  summoned  to  Paris,  in  order  to  register 
and  put  her  seal  to  the  acts  of  spoliation  of  the  Emperor." 
Yet  probably  a  Congress  would  have  been  the  best  solution. 
On  April  30  she  complained  of  the  suspected  designs  of 
Sardinia  as  morally  bad  as  well  as  politically  inexpedient. 
She  begged  Lord  John  to  insert  a  passage  in  his  draft  to  place 
it  on  record  that  "  we  do  attach  importance  to  public  justice 
and  morality."  The  Foreign  Minister  replied  the  same  day 
that  he  was  sorry  that  he  could  not  agree  that  there  would  be 
any  moral  wrong  in  helping  to  overthrow  the  Government 
of  the   King  of   the  Two   Sicilies  ;    the   best  international 


266  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

lawyers  thought  it  a  merit  to  overthrow  a  tyrannical  govern- 
ment, and  few  governments  had  been  so  tyrannical  as  that 
of  Naples  ;  he  could  not  see  anything  wrong  in  giving  aid  to 
an  insurrection  in  the  Kingdoms  of  Naples  and  Sicily  {Letters, 
iii.  505,  506).  So  possible  is  it  for  Sovereigns  and  Ministers  to 
see  things  from  different  aspects. 

"  Really  it  is  too  bad,"  wrote  the  Queen  to  her  uncle  on 
May  8,  1860.  "  No  country,  no  human  being  would  ever 
dream  of  disturbing  or  attacking  France  ;  every  one  would 
be  glad  to  see  her  prosperous  ;  but  she  must  needs  disturb 
every  quarter  of  the  Globe  and  try  to  make  mischief  and 
set  every  one  by  the  ears  ;  and  of  course  it  will  end  some 
day  in  a  regular  crusade  against  the  universal  disturber  of 
the  world.  It  is  really  monstrous."  (ib.  iii.  508  ;  Martin, 
v.  98.)  It  is  true  that  a  march  on  the  Rhine  was  openly 
talked  of  at  Paris,  and  Belgium  was  alarmed  by  threats  of 
annexation  ;  but  Germany  too  was  by  no  means  as  unaggres- 
sive as  it  pleased  the  English  Court  to  believe. 

The  Times  of  June  25,  1860,  took  heart  from  the  great 
volunteer  review  as  a  proof  that  England  was  "  at  heart 
a  military  nation."  The  Courts  of  England,  Prussia,  and 
Austria  agreed  that  no  one  of  them  should  take  action  without 
previous  communication  with  the  others.  So  that  the  Prince 
could  write  to  Stockmar  on  June  30  that  "  even  our  Cabinet 
is  beginning  to  see  things  rightly."  (ib.  v.  134.)  And 
on  August  21,  after  the  great  volunteer  review  at  Edinburgh, 
he  could  write  to  the  same  that  "  the  French  are  as  much 
out  of  humour  at  this  demonstration  as  Messrs.  Cobden  and 
Bright."     {ib.  v.  173.) 

That  summer  of  1860  was  indeed  an  anxious  time. 
Everything  seemed  ripening  to  war  in  the  customary  way  : 
the  French  and  English  Press  flinging  fierce  retorts  at  one 
another.  In  June  Napoleon  had  a  friendly  interview  at 
Baden  with  his  future  enemy  and  Conqueror,  William  I.  of 
Germany,  in  which  he  complained  of  the  power  of  the  Press, 
and  warned  the  Prussian  King  against  permitting  it  to  rule 
Prussia  as  it  ruled  England  ;  where  it  had  helped  to  create 
that  childish  fear  of  a  quite  impossible  French  invasion. 
(ib.  v.  125.)  In  any  case,  the  panic  produced  a  frenzy 
of  volunteering,  and  it  was  in  vain  that  the  Emperor  con- 


The  Queen  and  tJie  Italian  Revolution     267 

vinced  Lord  Clarendon  of  the  sincerity  of  his  wish  to  maintain 
the  English  alliance  (ib.  v.  174-6),  and  tried  to  strengthen  it 
by  abolishing  on  December  10,  1860,  the  passport  system 
against  English  travellers,     (ib.  v.  250.) 

In  November  1860  Lord  John  sent  the  Queen  a  draft 
dispatch  to  be  sent  to  all  the  Powers,  expressing  approval 
of  the  Italian  revolution,  and  adding  that,  if  any  Power 
attempted  forcible  interference,  this  country  should  be  free 
to  act  as  it  chose. 

The  Queen  replied  that  this  was  either  an  empty  threat  or 
one  meant  to  be  followed  by  war,  and  she  "  for  one  was  not 
prepared  to  decide  to  go  to  war  to  secure  the  success  of  the 
Italian  revolution."  (Letters,  iii.  523.)  It  is  to  the  credit  of 
both  correspondents  that  no  breach  of  amicable  relations 
resulted  from  these  divergent  views,  but  all  their  letters  show 
the  difficulty  of  harmonising  the  frequently  irreconcilable 
opinions  of  the  Crown  and  the  Foreign  Minister  under  a 
system  which  makes  the  latter  partly  responsible  to  Parlia- 
ment and  partly  to  the  Crown.  And  this  division  of  responsi- 
bility is  manifestly  not  conducive  to  a  decided  or  consistent 
foreign  policy. 

No  change  for  the  better  marked  the  Queen's  feeling 
towards  Napoleon  as  time  went  on.  On  August  18,  1861, 
in  a  letter  to  Lord  Palmerston  she  wrote  pessimistically  of  the 
time  "  when  the  Emperor  should  have  the  whole  Continent 
at  his  feet,  and  the  command  of  the  Mediterranean  and  the 
Baltic,"  as  not  a  very  pleasant  one  for  his  ally.  (ib. 
iii.  575.)  And  Lord  Clarendon  pressed  on  her  the  possibility 
of  the  Emperor's  thinking  it  necessary  at  any  moment  for  his 
purposes  in  France  to  seize  upon  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine. 
(ib.  iii.  585.) 

It  seems  almost  a  miracle  that  the  events  that  ended  in 
the  unification  of  Italy  did  not  result  in  a  European  war.  It 
has  been  shown  that  in  May  1859  the  Queen  and  Prince 
actually  wished  to  go  to  war  with  France  in  defence  of 
Austria,  and  on  March  20,  1860,  the  Queen  expressed  to 
Lord  John  Russell  her  fear  that  it  would  "  not  be  long  before 
the  union  of  Europe  for  her  safety  against  a  common  enemy 
might  become  a  painful  necessity."  (Martin,  v.  59.)  The 
Prince  Regent  of  Prussia's  idea,  as  expressed  in  a  letter  to 


268  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

the  Prince  Consort  on  March  4,  1860,  that  the  four  Powers 
of  England,  Prussia,  Austria,  and  Russia,  without  forming  an 
actual  coalition,  or  even  alliance,  might  oppose  a  "  moral 
consensus  of  opinion  "  to  the  French  desire  of  annexation 
(ib.  v.  47)  was  in  the  direction  of  joint  military  action  and 
of  a  return  to  the  situation  of  1814.  To  the  tact  and  firm- 
ness with  which  Lord  Palmerston  and  Lord  John  Russell 
steered  the  ship  of  State  safely  through  these  dangerous 
eddies  the  maintenance  of  the  peace  of  Europe  was  mainly 
due,  assisted  as  they  were  by  the  Court's  strong  prefer- 
ence for  a  policy  of  neutrality  ;  but  much  was  also  due  to  the 
good  sense  and  moderation  of  the  French  Emperor. 

One  cannot  perhaps  better  take  leave  of  this  period  of 
Lord  John  Russell's  control  of  the  Foreign  Office  than  by 
recalling  the  words  in  which,  in  a  letter  to  the  Queen  dated 
December  29,  1851,  he  laid  down  his  conception  of  the  lines 
on  which  the  foreign  policy  of  this  country  should  always 
be  conducted  :  "  The  grand  rule  of  doing  to  others  as  we 
wish  that  they  should  do  unto  us  is  more  applicable  than 
any  system  of  political  science.  The  honour  of  England 
does  not  consist  in  defending  every  English  officer  or  English 
subject,  right  or  wrong,  but  in  taking  care  that  she  does 
not  infringe  the  rules  of  justice,  and  that  they  are  not 
infringed  against  her."  (Letters,  ii.  428.) 

But  equally  wise  and  memorable  were  the  words  of  the 
Queen  in  a  letter  to  Lord  Clarendon  of  March  30,  1853, 
when  she  exhorted  him  in  all  cases  of  diplomatic  difficulty 
to  "  arrest  the  mischief,  sure  to  arise  from  a  continuance  of 
mutual  suspicion  between  this  Country  and  any  Power,  by 
at  once  entering  upon  full  and  unreserved  explanations,  on 
the  first  symptoms  of  distrust."  (ib.  ii.  540.)  Many  wars 
and  fears  of  wars  might  have  been  saved  by  the  observ- 
ance of  so  golden  a  counsel.  But  how  can  a  society  based 
on  the  principle  of  antagonistic  nationalities  generate  any- 
thing but  mutual  suspicion  ? 


CHAPTER    VII 

The  Queen  and  the  Dano-German  War 

Never  were  the  waters  of  international  strife  more  disturbed 
than  during  the  first  half  of  the  Queen's  reign,  nor  least 
among  the  causes  of  disturbance  was  the  immemorial  dispute 
between  Germany  and  Denmark  about  the  Duchies  of 
Holstein  and  Schleswig.  It  brought  us  nearer  to  war  than 
any  other  problem  of  the  time,  and  as  our  escape  from  such 
a  calamity  was  largely  due  to  the  action  of  the  Queen,  and 
as  the  episode  well  illustrates  the  part  that  is  or  may  be 
played  by  the  Crown  in  foreign  politics,  so  much  of  the 
history  of  the  quarrel  as  concerned  the  Queen  constitutes  a 
necessary  chapter  in  dealing  with  the  constitutional  aspects 
of  her  reign. 

From  the  first  her  sympathies  were  strongly  on  the  side 
of  Germany  against  the  Danes,  and  from  1848  onwards  the 
question  embittered  relations  between  herself  and  Palmerston. 
When  war  broke  out  in  1849  between  Germany  and  Denmark, 
she  attributed  it  to  an  unlawful  attempt  on  Denmark's  part 
to  incorporate  Schleswig,  and  held  that  it  was  Germany's 
right  and  duty  not  to  make  peace  till  she  had  secured  the 
integrity  of  that. Duchy.     {Letters,  ii.  265.) 

In  1850,  when  the  Powers  were  to  be  invited  to  sign  a 
protocol  to  settle  the  Danish  question,  she  remonstrated 
strongly  with  Palmerston  against  excluding  the  Germanic 
Confederation  from  the  invitation.  She  argued  that,  as 
Holstein  belonged  to  that  Confederation  and  was  only 
accidentally  connected  with  Denmark  through  its  Sovereign, 
a  protocol  to  ensure  the  integrity  of  the  Danish  Monarchy 
without  Germany's  knowledge  and  consent  amounted  to  a 
direct  attack  on  Germany  ;  it  was  "  an  act  repugnant  to 
all  feelings  of  justice  and  morality  for  third  parties  to  dispose 

of  other  people's  properties  "  ;    nor  was  it  surprising  that 

269 


270  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Austria  and  Prussia  should  complain  of  Lord  Palmerston's 
agreeing  about  the  said  protocol  with  Sweden,  Russia, 
Denmark,  and  France  without  giving  any  notice  to  the 
German  powers.     (Letters,  ii.  296,  June  22,  1850.) 

Lord  Palmerston,  in  a  letter  of  June  23,  1850,  to  the 
Prime  Minister,  traversed  all  these  complaints  of  the  Queen. 
As  the  protocol  was  only  a  record  of  the  wishes  of  the  Powers 
and  decided  nothing,  it  could  not  be  an  attack  upon  Germany. 
The  Queen  was  requiring  him  to  be  Minister  for  the  Germanic 
Confederation,  and  "  why  should  we  take  up  the  cudgels  for 
Germany  ?  "  The  Queen,  however,  stuck  to  it  that  the 
protocol  did  imply  that  Holstein  was  to  remain  part  of 
Denmark,  and  that  this  did  involve  an  attack  on  Germany, 
inasmuch  as  the  Diet  in  1846  had  declared  Denmark's 
attempt  to  incorporate  Schleswig  to  be  a  virtual  declaration 
of  war  owing  to  the  close  connection  between  Holstein  and 
Schleswig.  She  told  Palmerston  that  she  did  not  wish  him 
to  be  Minister  for  Germany,  but  only  to  treat  Germany 
with  due  consideration,     (ib.  ii.  298.) 

The  difference  was  acute,  and  it  occurred  just  when 
relations  were  almost  at  their  worst  between  the  Queen  and 
her  Foreign  Minister  ;  for  it  was  on  June  25,  1850,  that 
Palmerston  made  that  speech  of  four  and  three-quarter 
hours  in  defence  of  his  Foreign  policy,  which  Lord  John 
Russell  in  a  letter  to  the  Queen  described  as  "  one  of  the 
most  masterly  he  ever  delivered."     (ib.  ii.  299.) 

A  few  days  later,  on  July  2,  1850,  peace  was  signed 
between  Denmark  and  Prussia,  though  war  continued 
between  Denmark  and  the  Duchies.  The  King  of  Denmark 
thanked  the  Queen  for  her  mediatory  intervention.  But 
the  Queen  continued  uneasy.  On  July  28  she  told  Lord 
John  Russell  that  she  was  personally  convinced  that  Lord 
Palmerston  was  secretly  planning  an  armed  Russian  inter- 
vention in  Schleswig  ;  and  that  she  owed  it  to  herself  and 
the  country  no  longer  to  retain  at  the  Foreign  Office  a 
man  in  whom  she  could  have  no  confidence,  and  who 
had  conducted  himself  in  anything  but  a  straightfor- 
ward and  proper  manner  to  herself,  so  exposing  her 
to  insults  from  other  nations,  and  the  country  to  the 
risk   of  serious  complications.      And   there  was  no  chance 


The  Queen  and  the  Dano-German  IVar     271 

of  his  reforming  himself   in   his    sixty-seventh    year.       (ib. 
ii.  306.) 

That  Parliament  had  supported  Palmerston  by  310  to 
264  only  a  few  weeks  before  did  not  affect  the  Queen  in  the 
smallest  degree.  But  she  was  glad  that  Palmerston  dis- 
countenanced the  proposal  made  by  Russia  and  France, 
that  they  and  Great  Britain,  having  signed  the  protocol  in 
Denmark's  favour,  should  send  their  armies  to  her  aid  in 
her  contest  with  Holstein ;  though  she  equally  disapproved 
of  Palmerston's  plan  of  getting  Austria  and  Prussia  to 
compel  Holstein  to  keep  the  peace,  (ib.  ii.  323,  October  16, 
1850.)  And  on  October  19  she  described  herself  to  Lord 
John  as  still  "  very  anxious  about  the  Holstein  question  "  ; 
as  indeed  there  was  reason  to  be. 

But  strongly  pro-German  as  the  Queen  was,  she  was  far 
from  being  pro-Prussian  at  that  time.  She  even  differed 
from  Stockmar  on  that  point,  writing  of  him  on  August  29, 
1848,  that  "  his  love  for  Prussia  is  to  me  incomprehensible, 
for  it  is  the  country  of  all  others  which  the  rest  of  Germany 
dislikes.  Stockmar  cannot  be  my  good  old  friend  if  he  has 
such  notions  of  injustice  as  I  hear  attributed  to  him." 
(ib.  ii.  228.)  It  was  not  till  after  the  marriage  of  the 
Princess  Royal  to  the  Crown  Prince  of  Prussia  in  1858 
that  the  Queen's  sympathy  for  Prussia  became  more  pro- 
nounced. 

With  the  Treaty  of  London,  of  May  8,  1852,  between  the 
five  Great  Powers  and  Norway  and  Sweden,  which  tried  to 
secure  the  integrity  of  Denmark  by  settling  the  order  of  the 
succession  to  the  throne,  Danish  affairs  came  to  a  temporary 
and  uneasy  rest.  And  no  wonder  the  rest  was  uneasy  ;  for 
diplomacy,  surpassing  itself  in  the  obscurity  of  its  language 
and  meaning,  created  all  the  subsequent  difficulties  that 
arose.  For  did  the  Treaty  commit  us  or  any  other  Power 
to  the  military  support  of  Denmark,  as  the  Treaty  of  London 
of  1839  committed  us  to  the  military  support  of  Belgium  in 
1914  ?  Mr.  Disraeli  thought  not,  saying  on  July  4,  1864  : 
"  We  were  not  bound  by  the  Treaty  of  1852  to  go  to  the 
assistance  of  Denmark  if  she  became  involved  in  a  war 
with  Germany."  (Beaconsfield's  Speeches,  ii.  105.)  And  so 
thought   Lord   Salisbury  :    "  The  treaties   which  give  us   a 


272  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

right  of  interference  do  not  bind  us  to  interfere,"  he  wrote 
in  April  1864.     (Essays,  ii.  191.) 

On  the  other  hand,  Prince  Gortschakoff  thought  other- 
wise. He  argued  fairly  that,  though  the  word  guarantee 
did  not  appear  in  the  Treaty,  yet  the  integrity  of  the  Danish 
Monarchy  was  virtually  placed  under  the  guarantee  of  that 
Treaty ;  for  the  signatory  Powers  had  established  permanently 
the  principle  of  such  integrity.  In  the  face  of  so  important 
a  "  moral  guarantee  "  as  had  been  signed  by  six  of  the  Powers, 
he  felt  bound  to  reject  Lord  John  Russell's  later  proposal  in 
May  1861  for  a  special  guarantee  of  Schleswig  by  only  four 
of  the  Powers,     (ib.  ii.  214.) 

General  opinion  took  the  same  common-sense  view  that, 
unless  Danish  integrity  was  guaranteed  by  the  Treaty,  the 
Treaty  was  so  much  waste  paper.  The  whole  of  Lord  John 
Russell's  policy  was  governed  by  such  a  belief  in  our  liability  : 
as  when  on  September  29,  1853,  he  told  the  German  Diet  that 
Her  Majesty  could  "  not  view  with  indifference  "  a  military 
occupation  of  Holstein,  or  when  on  January  24,  1854,  he  wrote 
to  Lord  Cowley  of  his  endeavour  to  obtain  the  concert  and 
co-operation  of  France,  Sweden,  and  Russia,  "  to  give,  if 
necessary,  material  assistance  to  Denmark  in  case  of  such  dis- 
memberment "  of  her  territory  as  was  threatened.  (Sir  A. 
Malet's  Overthrow  of  the  Germanic  Confederation,  84,  86 ; 
Beaconsfield's  Speeches,  ii.  117.) 

The  Queen  took  an  opposite  view,  and  her  letter  to  Lord 
Russell  of  May  27,  1861,  throws  some  light  on  the  original 
construction  of  the  Treaty  of  1852.  It  appears  that  the 
absence  in  the  Treaty  of  any  formal  guarantee  obliging  us  to 
take  up  arms  for  the  thing  guaranteed  was  in  deference  to  the 
opinion  of  the  British  Government,  which,  on  general  prin- 
ciples, had  always  objected  to  such  engagements.  She  protested 
strongly,  therefore,  against  Lord  Russell's  proposal  to  "  renew 
the  guarantee  of  the  integrity  of  the  Danish  Monarchy  con- 
tained in  the  Treaty  of  May  8,  1852,"  on  the  ground  that  they 
gave  those  engagements  the  force  of  a  guarantee,  which  had 
been  on  principle  objected  to  by  us  at  the  time.  "Both 
France  and  Russia,"  she  said,  "  object  to  such  a  guarantee 
now,  even  with  regard  to  Schleswig  alone,  as  involving  the 
guaranteeing  powers  in  future  in  grave  difficulties,  and  Lord 


The  Queen  and  the  Dano-German  War    273 

John  proposes  to  extend  it  to  Holstein,  a  part  of  Germany 
and  not  of  Denmark,  by  way  of  obviating  the  difficulty.  The 
Queen  cannot  give  her  sanction  to  this  proposal."  (Letters, 
Hi.  561,  May  27,  1861.) 

It  seems  hardly  credible,  but  here  was  a  treaty  designedly 
framed  in  order  not  to  bear  the  meaning  which  alone  could 
give  it  any  practical  value  ;  to  give  a  pledge  which  with  equal 
honesty  could  be  kept  or  broken  according  to  convenience. 
No  wonder  it  produced  a  crop  of  troubles  ;  so  that  Lord 
Salisbury  could  say  of  his  country  in  1864,  in  language  of  which 
he  was  so  great  a  master,  that  England  had  "  eaten  in  the 
last  twelvemonth  an  amount  of  dirt  at  which  the  digestion  of 
any  other  people  would  have  revolted."  (Essays,  ii.  188.) 
That  the  Queen  had  never  liked  the  Treaty  of  1852  is  proved 
by  the  fact  that  many  years  later  she  absolved  Lord  Malmes- 
bury,  Foreign  Minister  in  Lord  Derby's  first  Government,  from 
the  blame  of  having  signed  it,  because  it  had  been  of  Palmer- 
ston's  designing. 

When  Lord  Malmesbury  was  again  at  the  Foreign  Office 
in  Lord  Derby's  second  Ministry  of  1858,  the  quarrel  between 
Denmark  and  Germany,  so  imperfectly  laid,  showed  strong 
symptoms  of  reviving  life.  When  Germany  refused  the 
Danish  proposal  for  the  appointment  of  joint  commissioners  of 
the  two  countries  to  settle  their  differences,  Lord  Malmesbury 
proposed  that  other  Powers,  including  England,  should  take 
measures  for  the  protection  of  Danish  integrity.  But  the 
Queen,  averse  to  so  pro-Danish  a  step,  refused  her  consent, 
writing  thus  to  the  Foreign  Minister  on  May  1,  1858  :  "  The 
Queen  has  received  a  draft  to  Lord  Cowley  on  the  Danish 
question,  which  she  cannot  sanction  as  submitted  to  her.  The 
question  is  a  most  important  one,  and  a  false  step  on  our 
part  may  produce  a  war  between  France  and  Germany.  The 
Queen  would  wish  Lord  Malmesbury  to  call  here  in  the 
course  of  to-morrow,  when  the  Prince  could  discuss  the 
matter  with  him  more  fully."     (Letters,  iii.  356.) 

Thus  the  fire  only  slumbered,  though  the  Treaty  of  1852 
kept  Denmark  in  at  least  external  peace  for  eleven  years. 
But  the  fire  burst  into  very  vigorous  flame  when  in  November 
1863  the  death  of  Frederick  VII.  of  Denmark  raised  again  the 
difficult  question  of  the  succession.  In  vain  had  Lord  Russell 
18 


274  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

in  the  previous  year  proposed  mediation  between  Denmark  and 
Germany  ;  for,  though  Bismarck  had  conditionally  accepted 
the  proposal,  Denmark  had  refused  it.  And  the  reason  of  her 
refusal  lay,  according  to  Lord  Russell,  in  the  action  of  a  large 
portion  of  the  English  Press,  including  the  Times  and  the 
Morning  Post,  which  not  only  inflamed  the  passions  of  the 
Danes,  but  led  them  to  believe  in  British  support  against  the 
most  moderate  demands  of  Germany.  (Walpole's  Russell,  ii. 
384.)  So  that  all  which  followed,  first  the  Danish-German 
War,  then  the  Prussian-Austrian  War,  then  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War,  might  have  all  been  avoided  but  for  the  malign 
influence  of  the  English  war  press,  which  desired  nothing  so 
little  as  peace,  and  succeeded  in  driving  Denmark  into  war. 

The  difficulty  of  the  political  situation  was  much  enhanced 
by  the  unfortunate  relations  that  still  continued  between  the 
Queen  and  her  two  chief  Ministers,  Lord  Russell,  her  Foreign 
Secretary,  and  Lord  Palmerston,  the  Prime  Minister.  Lord 
Granville,  writing  to  Lord  Clarendon  on  January  16,  1862, 
said  of  the  Queen  :  "  She  retains  some  of  her  husband's 
feelings  about  Palmerston  and  John,  and  this  is  increased  as 
regards  the  former  by  recollections  of  great  enmity  between 
them  at  one  time,  although  I  believe  both  the  men  have  quite 
forgotten  and  forgiven  it."     (Fitzmaurice's  Granville,  i.  406.) 

When,  therefore,  in  1863  war  between  Denmark  and  the  two 
German  Powers  loomed  close  on  the  horizon,  English  opinion 
took  strongly  the  side  of  the  weaker  nation,  whilst  the  Queen 
was  as  strongly  on  the  other.  As  Lord  Edmond  Fitzmaurice 
writes  :  "  An  ignorant  contempt  which  talked  of  a  war  with 
Germany  as  a  thing  which  might  be  undertaken  with  a  light 
heart  gave  the  prevailing  tone  to  the  conversation  of  London 
Society,  and  was  unfortunately  shared  by  the  two  leading 
statesmen,"  Russell  and  Palmerston.  Lord  Palmerston's  re- 
mark in  the  House  of  Commons  on  the  last  day  of  the  session, 
July  23,  1863,  that  any  Power  that  made  a  violent  attempt 
to  overthrow  the  rights  of  Denmark  or  to  interfere  with  her 
integrity  would  not  have  Denmark  alone  to  contend  with, 
was  naturally  construed  by  Denmark  as  a  promise  of  military 
support,  though  the  Cabinet,  from  Mr.  Gladstone's  account, 
seem  not  so  to  have  understood  it.  (Morley's  Gladstone,  ii. 
115-7.) 


The  Queen  and  the  Dano-German  War     275 

Meantime  the  Queen  was  strong  for  neutrality.  "  The 
Queen,"  wrote  Lord  Granville  to  Lord  Clarendon  on  August  8, 
1863,  "  is  up  in  her  stirrups,  very  German,  and  determined,  if 
necessary,  to  resist  the  Prime  Minister."  (Filzmaurice,  i.  458.) 
She  followed  the  line  which  she  thought  would  have  been  the 
Prince's,  and  which  no  doubt  would  have  been  strongly  anti- 
Dane,  in  conformity  with  the  report  recorded  of  him  by  Mr. 
Gladstone  on  January  25,  1861,  that  he  was  "  wild  about  the 
Danish  question."  (Morley,  ii.  93.)  And  when  Mr.  Gladstone 
was  at  Balmoral  in  October  1863  he  found  her  "  intensely 
interested "  in  the  Schleswig-Holstein  question,  "  because 
the  Prince  thought  it  a  great  case  of  justice  on  the  side  rather 
opposite  to  that  of  Palmerston  and  the  Government  policy. 
She  spoke  about  this  with  great  earnestness,  and  said  she 
considered  it  a  legacy  from  him."     (ib.  ii.  102.) 

On  the  other  hand,  Lord  Palmerston's  view  was,  that 
whilst  we  could  only  make  a  strong  and  indignant  protest  if 
Germany  chose  to  commit  an  act  of  gross  injustice  and  diplo- 
matic perfidy  against  Holstein,  because  it  belonged  to  the 
Germanic  Confederation,  in  the  matter  of  Schleswig,  which 
did  not  so  belong  to  it,  an  invasion  by  Germany  would  be  an 
act  of  war  against  Denmark,  entitling  Denmark  to  our  active 
military  and  naval  support.  (December  26,  1863,  Walpole's 
Russell,  ii.  388.)  Nor  had  he  any  illusions  on  the  funda- 
mental fact,  which  was,  as  he  told  Parliament  on  July  23, 
1863,  that  Germany  nourished  the  dream  of  a  German  fleet 
and  the  wish  for  Kiel  as  a  German  seaport. 

That  we  were  not  involved  in  the  war  seems  to  have  been 
mainly  due  to  Napoleon  and  to  the  Queen.  On  November 
19,  1863,  Napoleon  gave  Denmark  clearly  to  understand  that 
she  could  look  for  no  help  to  France.  (Beaconsfield,  Speeches, 
ii.  105.)  And  there  were  other  reasons  that  made  him  deaf 
to  all  our  efforts  to  involve  him  in  any  joint  action  on  behalf 
of  Denmark.  He  resented  the  diplomatic  rebuff  from  Russia 
in  which  we  had  involved  both  France  and  Austria  over 
Poland  ;  he  could  still  less  forgive  "  the  rude  tone  of  Lord 
Russell's  dispatch  "  in  reply  to  his  reasonable  proposal  on 
November  5,  1854,  for  a  European  Congress  ;  of  which 
dispatch  Lord  Malmesbury  wrote,  when  it  was  published 
in  November,  that  he  could  not  be  surprised  at  the  Emperor's 


276  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

anger,  (ii.  304, 308.)  Sir  A.  Malet  has  suggested  that  Bismarck 
kept  Napoleon  neutral  by  promises  of  territorial  compensa- 
tion {Overthrow,  etc.,  27,  28),  but  ordinary  prudence  was  motive 
enough.  He  is  also  said  to  have  made  the  cession  of  Venetia 
by  Austria  (which  came  to  pass  in  1866)  and  the  rectification 
of  the  Rhine  frontier  the  price  of  his  assistance,  and  this 
opened  up  a  prospect  from  which  our  statesmen  recoiled. 
{Political  History  of  England,  xii.  189.) 

The  Queen's  attitude  is  well  put  by  Lord  Malmesbury, 
who  thus  wrote  in  his  diary  on  January  29,  1864  :  "  The 
Prussians  and  Austrians  are  advancing  towards  the  Eider 
with  the  intention  of  entering  Schleswig  ;  the  Danes  are 
preparing  to  resist,  but  can  have  little  chance  unless  England 
or  France  come  to  their  assistance,  which  the  latter,  it  is  said, 
is  ready  to  do,  but  the  Queen  will  not  hear  of  going  to  war 
with  Germany.  No  doubt  this  country  would  like  to  fight 
for  the  Danes  and,  from  what  is  said,  I  infer  that  the 
Government  is  inclined  to  support  them  also,  but  finds 
great  difficulties  in  the  opposition  of  the  Queen."  {Memoirs, 
ii.  314.) 

It  was  a  time  of  terrible  anxiety  for  the  Queen,  who  was 
firm  as  adamant  against  war.  Before  Parliament  met  in 
February  1864,  a  paragraph  about  Germany,  which  she 
thought  too  bellicose,  had  to  be  struck  out,  and  a  new  and 
more  colourless  one  put  in  its  place. 

On  February  12,  1864,  she  thus  wrote  to  Lord  Granville, 
in  whom  of  all  her  Ministers  she  found  most  sympathy  : 
that  she  "  would  feel  it  her  duty  in  the  interests  of  this 
country  and  the  peace  of  Europe  to  resist  any  proposal  for 
war.  The  only  chance  of  preserving  peace  for  Europe  is  by 
not  assisting  Denmark,  who  has  brought  this  entirely  on 
herself.  Denmark,  after  all,  is  of  less  vital  importance  than 
the  peace  of  Europe,  and  it  would  be  madness  to  set  the  whole 
Continent  on  fire  for  the  imaginary  advantages  of  maintaining 
the  integrity  of  Denmark.  .  .  .  The  Queen  suffers  much, 
and  her  nerves  are  more  and  more  totally  shattered.  .  .  . 
But  though  all  this  anxiety  is  wearing  her  out,  it  will  not 
shake  her  in  her  firm  purpose  of  resisting  any  attempt  to 
involve  this  country  in  a  mad  and  useless  combat."  {Fitz- 
maurice,  i.  459.) 


The  Queen  and  the  Dano-German  War     277 

Yet  at  that  time  Lord  Palmerston  had  no  thought  of  war  ; 
for  he  wrote  to  Lord  Russell  the  following  day,  saying  that, 
whilst  he  fully  shared  Lord  Russell's  indignation,  and  thought 
the  conduct  of  Austria  and  Prussia  discreditably  bad,  he  could 
not  countenance  the  idea  of  sending  an  English  squadron  to 
Copenhagen  and  a  French  army  corps  to  the  Rhine  frontier 
in  the  event  of  the  German  Powers  refusing  mediation  on  the 
basis  of  Danish  integrity.  He  doubted  whether  the  Cabinet 
or  the  country  were  yet  prepared  for  such  active  interference, 
and  he  added  :  "  The  truth  is,  that  to  enter  into  a  military 
conflict  with  Germany  on  Continental  ground  would  be  a 
serious  undertaking.  If  Sweden  and  Denmark  were  actively 
co-operating  with  us,  our  20,000  men  might  do  a  good  deal  ; 
but  Austria  and  Prussia  could  bring  200,000  or  300,000 
into  the  field."  (Ashley,  ii.  246,  247.)  So  that  he  and  the 
Queen  were  at  that  moment  from  different  points  of  view  of 
the  same  mind. 

Yet  in  spite  of  this  letter,  written  on  February  13,  it  has 
been  said  that  till  a  Cabinet  held  in  February  both  Lord 
Palmerston  and  Lord  Russell  were  so  conscious  of  our  duty 
to  Denmark  that  they  had  ordered  Sir  Alfred  Horsfold  to 
prepare  a  scheme  for  an  English  landing  on  Denmark,  and 
that  they  were  only  diverted  from  going  to  war  by  the 
"  overmastering  eloquence  of  Mr.  Gladstone."  (Gen.  Maurice, 
Balance  of  Military  Power  in  Europe.)  Mr.  Gladstone  was 
undoubtedly  against  war,  but  the  critical  Cabinets  seem  to 
have  come  later,  on  May  7,  June  11,  June  24,  and  June  25. 
(Morley's  Gladstone,  ii.  118.)  At  the  Cabinet  held  on  January 
4,  1864,  Mr.  Gladstone  and  other  peace  members  went 
almost  as  far  as  Palmerston  could  have  wished  ;  for  they 
agreed  to  a  proposal  to  France  to  make  a  joint  announcement 
to  Austria  and  Prussia  that  if  they  prosecuted  the  quarrel 
by  force  "  we  would  jointly  resist  them  with  all  our  might." 
(ib.  ii.  116,  117.)  It  was  at  this  Cabinet  that  Mr.  Glad- 
stone wrote  that,  often  as  he  had  been  struck  by  the  Queen's 
"  extraordinary  integrity  of  mind,"  he  had  never  been  so 
struck  by  it  as  by  a  letter  of  hers  on  the  Danish  question 
that  was  read  on  that  occasion,     (ib.  ii.  192.) 

Still,  it  was  the  Queen's  influence  that  turned  the  scale 
in  favour  of  peace.     On  February  14,  1864,  she  wrote  to  Lord 


278  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Granville  that  she  was  "  so  thoroughly  convinced  of  the 
awful  danger  and  recklessness  of  our  stirring  up  France  and 
Russia  to  go  to  war  that  she  would  be  prepared  to  make  a 
stand  upon  it,  should  it  even  cause  the  resignation  of  Lord 
Russell.  .  .  .  She  is  quite  determined  upon  it,  solely  from  a 
regard  to  the  safety  of  this  country  and  of  Europe  in  general." 
And  she  authorised  Lord  Granville  to  let  his  colleagues  know 
her  opinion.     (Fitzmaurice,  i.  460.) 

Had  the  Queen  been  less  firm,  or  sought  for  popularity, 
the  war  of  1914  might  have  occurred  fifty  years  sooner 
between  the  same  belligerents  of  the  later  time.  On 
February  21,  Lord  Malmesbury  records  that  Lord  Russell 
informed  the  Danish  Minister  that,  not  even  if  the  Germans 
went  to  Copenhagen,  could  Denmark  rely  on  any  help  from 
England.  But  opinion  was  much  divided.  Lord  Derby, 
like  all  the  Conservative  party,  was  for  the  Danes,  whilst  the 
Court  remained  steadily  against  them.     (Memoirs,  ii.  318.) 

But  as  the  war  went  on  and  the  Danes  suffered  inevitable 
reverses,  the  war  feeling  in  England  grew  apace.  On  May  1, 
Palmerston  warned  the  Austrian  ambassador  that  it  would 
be  regarded  as  an  affront  to  England  if  an  Austrian  squadron 
on  its  way  to  the  Baltic  should  pass  along  the  coasts  and 
ports  of  England  to  help  the  German  operations  against 
Denmark.  Such  a  thing  he  could  not  and  would  not  stand, 
and  unless  an  English  squadron  followed  them  he  would 
resign.  As  this  meant  war,  the  ambassador,  recognising  the 
hopelessness  of  it,  assured  Palmerston  that  no  Austrian 
squadron  should  enter  the  Baltic.     (Ashley,  ii.  249-52.) 

The  Queen,  through  Lord  Granville,  expressed  strong 
disapproval  of  this  successful  threat,  and  appealed  to  the 
Cabinet  against  her  Prime  Minister,  inviting  also  the'  private 
support  of  the  Opposition  leader,  Lord  Derby.  She  even 
threatened  to  appeal  to  the  country  by  a  dissolution.  (Lee's 
Victoria,  350,  351.) 

Lord  Palmerston's  conversation  with  the  Austrian  am- 
bassador was  in  due  course  laid  before  the  Cabinet,  of  which 
the  war  party  consisted,  according  to  Mr.  Gladstone,  of  Lords 
Palmerston,  Russell,  Westbury,  and  Stanley  of  Alderley. 
Lord  Palmerston  and  Lord  Russell  being  for  war,  even  if 
it  were  single  handed.     (Morley,  ii.  117.)     The   tumultuous 


The  Queen  and  the  Dano-German  JVar    279 

applause  which  at  a  public  banquet  greeted  the  statement 
that  the  British  Fleet  was  in  the  Downs  and  ready  to  go 
anywhere  showed  that  the  drift  of  public  opinion  was  in  the 
same  direction.  Lord  Russell,  claiming  the  Cabinet's  ;ip- 
proval,  was  about  to  send  Palmerston's  conversation  to  Lord 
Blomfield,  our  ambassador  at  Vienna,  when  he  was  fortunately 
stopped  by  a  letter  from  Lord  Granville  intimating  that  he 
was  mistaken  in  his  belief  of  the  Cabinet's  approval. 

The  Queen  became  justly  alarmed,  and  some  sharp  corre- 
spondence ensued  between  her  secretary,  General  Grey,  and 
Lord  Russell.  On  May  9,  1864,  the  General  wrote  for  her  to 
Lord  Granville  :  "  Her  Majesty  will  insist,  before  she  goes 
to  Scotland,  upon  no  important  step  being  taken  without 
having  been  fully  and  maturely  considered  by  the  Cabinet, 
before  it  is  submitted  to  Her  Majesty's  approval.  And 
she  relies  upon  the  Cabinet,  and  particularly  upon  yourself, 
to  ease  her  from  being  dragged  unnecessarily  into  this 
miserable  war."     (Fitzmaurice,  i.  465.) 

This  pacifist  attitude  on  the  part  of  the  Queen  was  more 
than  the  English  war  party  could  bear.  Headed  by  Lord 
Ellenborough  in  the  Lords,  it  attacked  the  Queen  viciously 
for  her  anti-Dane  attitude,  and  Lord  Russell  defended  her. 
General  Grey,  writing  for  her  to  Lord  Granville  on  May  28, 
1864,  said  that  "  it  naturally  filled  her  with  indignation  to  hear 
of  such  base  and  malignant  attacks  being  insinuated  against 
her  by  Lord  Ellenborough.  .  .  .  She  is  also  a  good  deal  hurt 
that  Lord  Derby,"  as  the  head  of  Lord  Ellenborough's  party, 
"  should  not  have  said  a  word  in  contradiction  or  of  con- 
demnation of  Lord  Ellenborough.  .  .  .  But  Lord  Ellen- 
borough must  have  meant  to  do  mischief,  and  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  the  dissatisfaction  which  doubtless  exists  at  the 
Queen's  continued  seclusion,  to  make  charges  which,  though 
he  must  know  them  himself  to  be  utterly  groundless,  are 
precisely  those  which  our  gobc-mouchcs  public  swallows  most 
greedily."  She  hoped  that  "  somehow  or  other  Lord  Ellen- 
borough might  hear  what  she  thought  of  him."  (ib. 
i.  465,  466.) 

The  episode  was  one  of  the  Queen's  worst  experiences. 
The  Tory  attack  was  followed  by  a  letter  from  her  uncle 
lamenting  the  bitter  feeling  that  was  rising  up  against  her, 


280  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

but  worst  of  all  by  a  letter  from  Lord  Russell  in  answer  to 
one  of  gratitude  from  herself  for  his  defence  of  her  in  the 
Lords,  "  written  in  his  coldest,  hardest  style,"  and  "  quietly 
assuming  that  she  might  inadvertently  have  given  occasion 
to  the  attacks  made  against  her."  General  Grey,  in  a  letter 
to  Lord  Granville  of  June  1,  1864,  said  that  he  had  never 
seen  the  Queen  "  so  completely  upset  as  she  has  been  these 
last  few  days  "  ;  he  should  vainly  attempt  to  describe  how 
much  she  felt  Lord  Russell's  letter,  when,  instead  of  the 
comfort  and  support  she  had  expected,  she  had  received 
nothing  but  "  the  cold,  unfeeling  insinuation  that  she  might 
have  given  occasion  to  what  had  been  said."  (Fitzmaurice, 
i.  468.)  And  so  far  were  the  charges  of  pro-Germanism  from 
being  true  that  she  had  almost  quarrelled  with  her  daughter, 
the  Crown  Princess  of  Prussia,  by  deprecating  the  violent 
counsels  which  Prussia  had  seemed  disposed  to  pursue,  and 
pointing  to  the  strong  feeling  that  had  been  created  against 
her  in  England,  (ib.  i.  467.)  All  she  had  struggled  for, 
as  she  wrote  to  Lord  Granville  on  June  6,  1864,  were  (1) 
not  to  let  this  country  be  dragged  into  a  useless  war  ;  (2) 
not  to  agree  to  an  impermanent  settlement  ;  (3)  not  to  let 
a  sovereign  be  imposed  on  the  Duchies  against  their  will. 
How  keenly  she  felt  her  position  is  indicated  by  the  pathetic 
conclusion  :  "  Oh,  how  fearful  it  is  to  be  suspected — un- 
cheered — unguided  and  unadvised — and  how  alone  the  poor 
Queen  feels  !  Her  friends  must  defend  her."  With  which 
compare  her  letter  to  the  Duke  of  Argyll  on  July  13,  1893  : 
"  I  feel  so  grateful  to  you  for  helping  me  in  my  difficult 
position,  as  I  feel  so  utterly  alone."  (Autobiography,  ii.  557.) 
On  June  23, 1864,  she  wrote  to  Lord  Granville,  deprecating 
in  the  strongest  way  the  thought  of  an  alliance  with  France 
on  behalf  of  Denmark.  She  spoke  of  "  the  enormous  danger 
of  allying  ourselves  with  France,  who  would  drag  us  into  a  war 
in  Italy  and  on  the  Rhine  and  set  all  Europe  in  a  blaze  "  ; 
declared  that,  if  the  Germans  were  unreasonable,  the  Danes 
were  much  more  so  ;  and  that  if  the  Danes  really  believed 
and  knew  that  we  should  not  help  them,  they  would  soon  give 
up.  "  The  Queen,"  she  went  on,  "  is  completely  exhausted 
by  the  anxiety  and  suspense,  and  misses  her  beloved  hus- 
band's help,  advice,  support,  and  love  in  an  overwhelming 


The  Queen  and  the  Dana-German  IVar    281 

manner.  .  .  .  Her  Ministers  should  know  how  heavy  her 
responsibility  is,  and  should  lighten  it  by  pursuing  a  prudent 
course,  and  one  which  she  feels  is  really  for  the  country's 
interests." 

Meantime  Cabinets  were  sitting  with  much  divided 
counsels  on  May  7,  June  11,  and  June  24  ;  nor  was  it  till  one 
held  on  June  25  that  the  Government  came  to  what  Mr. 
Gladstone  termed  "  a  tolerable,  not  the  best  conclusion." 
(Morley,  ii.  118.)  But  on  June  27  the  foreign  crisis  was  still, 
in  Mr.  Gladstone's  words,  drowning  them  deeper  than  ever. 
He  believed  that  we  should  not  go  to  war,  and  was  sure  that 
we  ought  not,  but  was  anxious  for  the  fate  of  the  Govern- 
ment,    (ib.  ii.  192.) 

When  with  the  close  of  the  armistice  during  the  Conference 
in  London  hostilities  began  again  on  June  27  between  Ger- 
many and  Denmark,  Lord  Malmesbury  heard  Lord  Russell 
in  the  Lords  make  a  two  hours'  speech,  which  was  to  the 
effect  "  that  the  Government  was  for  peace  at  any  price, 
and  meant  to  desert  the  Danes."  (Memoirs,  ii.  326.)  The 
same  day  the  Queen,  deploring  the  obstinacy  of  the  Danes 
in  refusing  every  proposal,  made  a  last  effort  for  peace, 
advocating  mediation,  to  which  she  was  sure  that  all  the 
German  Powers  would  agree,  or,  failing  that,  our  taking  no 
further  part  in  the  matter. 

But  all  suggestions  of  mediation  or  concession  were 
spurned  by  the  Danish  Prime  Minister,  who  hoped  to  the  last 
for  the  armed  intervention  of  England  or  France.  So  the  war 
ran  its  course,  till  the  Treaty  of  Vienna  of  October  30,  1864, 
finally  transferred  the  contested  and  conquered  Duchies  to 
German  dominion.  Vain  was  the  condemnation  of  the 
Government's  policy  by  the  Lords  in  early  July,  and  vain 
the  four  days'  debate  in  the  Commons  against  it.  Contrary 
to  the  Queen's  expectation,  the  claims  of  the  Duke  of 
Augustenburg  to  the  Elbe  Duchies  were  not  recognised  by 
Austria  and  Prussia,  who  insisted  on  their  rights  of  conquest. 
So  on  August  25,  1864,  she  conveyed  her  opinion  to  Lord 
Granville  against  our  taking  further  concern  in  the  matter, 
only  wishing  Prussia  to  be  made  aware  "  of  what  she  and  her 
Government,  and  every  honest  man  in  Europe,  must  think  of 
the  gross  and  unblushing  violation  of  every  assurance  and 


282  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

pledge  that  she  had  given,  which  Prussia  had  been  guilty 
of."     (Fitzmaurice,  i.  476.) 

And  in  this  opinion  she  was  at  one  with  her  Government  ; 
for  Lord  Russell  in  reply  to  the  formal  announcement  of  the 
joint  occupation  of  the  Duchies  by  the  German  Powers  did  not 
shrink  from  telling  Bismarck  that  the  war  had  been  one  of 
unjust  aggression,  and  that  the  British  Government  lamented 
the  success  of  the  Prussian  and  Austrian  arms.  (Lee's 
Victoria,  351.) 

The  whole  episode,  thus  concluded,  was  of  the  greatest 
constitutional  interest,  as  showing  the  great  powers  still 
exercisable  by  the  Crown  in  the  realm  of  foreign  policy.  For 
the  Queen  did  more  than  express  opinions  adverse  to  those  of 
her  chief  Ministers  and  of  a  large  section  of  public  opinion  ; 
she  insisted  on  their  prevailing.  She  saved  the  country  from 
war  in  spite  of  itself  ;  and  this  must  be  put  down  on  the 
credit  side  of  the  system  that  enabled  her  to  do  so. 

At  the  same  time  it  is  far  from  certain  that  Palmerston's 
and  Russell's  policy  would  have  resulted  in  war.  Palmerston 
thought  not.  Writing  to  the  King  of  Belgium  on  August  28, 
1864,  whilst  stigmatising  the  Danish  war  as  not  "  a  page  in 
German  history  which  any  honourable  or  generous  German 
hereafter  would  not  look  back  upon  without  a  blush,"  he 
expressed  the  wish  "  that  France  and  Russia  had  consented 
to  join  with  us  in  giving  a  different  direction  to  these  affairs  ; 
and  I  am  convinced  that  words  from  three  such  Powers 
would  have  been  sufficient  without  recourse  to  blows." 
(Ashley,  ii.  256.)  Still,  he  thought  it  not  amiss  that  the 
power  of  Prussia  should  be  increased  by  the  accession  of  the 
Duchies  ;  for  he  deemed  it  desirable  that  Germany  in  the 
aggregate  should  be  strong,  "  in  order  to  control  those  two 
ambitious  and  aggressive  powers,  France  and  Russia,  that 
press  upon  her  east  and  west."  (ib.  ii.  270.)  A  later  opinion 
of  the  same  sort  was  expressed  by  General  Maurice,  who 
hazarded  the  idea  that  the  formation  of  a  United  Germany 
in  the  centre  of  Europe  might  prove  to  be  "  the  event  of  our 
time  which  in  the  long  run  will  most  tend  to  the  happiness 
of  the  human  race." 

The  same  authority  thought  that  we  should  have  taken 
the  risk  ;    that  we  might  have  taken  up  positions  where, 


The  Queen  and  the  Dano-German  JVar    283 

protected  by  the  guns  of  our  fleet,  our  army  "  could  have 
defied  the  utmost  efforts  of  the  Austro-Prussian  forces  to 
break  down  their  resistance."  But,  even  from  the  merely 
military  point  of  view,  posterity  may  be  grateful  to  the  Queen 
and  to  Napoleon  for  having  insured  our  neutrality.  For  the 
Prussian  Army  was  already  provided  with  the  needle  breech- 
loader, which  was  destined  to  prove  so  fatal  against  Austria 
only  two  years  later  ;  and  it  was  not  till  after  1866  that  our 
Army  discarded  the  musket.     (Malmesbury,  ii.  315,  319.) 


CHAPTER    VIII 

The  Crown  and  the  Army 

The  total  result  of  the  many  changes  in  military  organisation 
that  marked  the  Queen's  reign  was  to  remove  from  the 
Crown  to  Parliament  the  real  control  of  the  Army.  There 
was  no  part  of  her  prerogative  to  which  the  Queen  clung  more 
closely  than  her  relation  to  the  services,  which  she  regarded 
as  her  own  property  and  province  rather  than  as  in  any  real 
sense  the  nation's. 

Thus,  when  Lord  Hill  resigned  the  command  of  the  Army, 
the  Queen  wrote  to  him  on  August  12,  1842,  that  she  could 
only  reluctantly  consent  to  it,  as  she  regretted  "  to  lose  Lord 
Hill's  services  at  the  head  of  her  Army."  {Letters,  i.  528.) 
Writing  to  Lord  Panmure  on  February  28,  1855,  she  spoke  of 
"  her  noble,  brave,  and  unequalled  soldiers  (whom  she  is  so 
proud  to  call  her  own)."     {Panmure  Papers,  i.  86.) 

When  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  sent  her  a  dispatch  destined 
for  Lord  Raglan,  she  returned  it  with  only  one  remark, 
namely,  the  entire  omission  of  her  name  throughout  the 
document  :  "  It  speaks  simply  in  the  name  of  the  People  of 
England,  and  of  their  sympathy,  whilst  the  Queen  feels  it  to 
be  one  of  her  highest  prerogatives  and  dearest  duties  to  care 
for  the  welfare  and  success  of  her  Army."  {Letters,  iii.  86, 
January  12,  1855.) 

The  Army  was  always  the  Queen's  predominant  interest. 
Lord  Panmure,  writing  to  Lord  Raglan  on  March  25,  1855, 
said  :  "  You  never  saw  anybody  so  entirely  taken  up  with 
military  affairs  as  she  (the  Queen)  is  "  {Panmure  Papers,  i. 
126),  and  so  it  was  always.  Nothing  connected  with  the 
Army  was  too  minute  for  her  solicitude.  When  in  1848  many 
British  officers  had  fallen  in  action  at  the  hands  of  the  Boers, 
she  attributed  their  heavy  loss  to  their  being  dressed  in  blue, 
whilst  their  men  were  in  scarlet,  and,  in  anticipation  of  the 

?84 


The  Crown  mid  the  Army  285 

plan  of  later  times,  she  wisely  recommended  a  greater  assimila- 
tion in  the  costume  of  officers  and  men.     (Letters,  ii.  238,  239.) 

Notwithstanding  her  preference  for  peace,  she  delighted 
in  the  exploits  of  war  :  as  shown  by  the  unbounded  joy 
she  expressed  at  the  successes  of  the  Austrians  over  the 
Piedmontese  in  1849  ;  writing  about  which  to  her  uncle  she 
said  :  "  I  could  work  myself  up  to  great  excitement  about 
these  exploits,  for  there  is  nothing  I  admire  more  than  great 
military  exploits  and  daring."     (ib.  ii.  2C0.) 

This  feeling  that  the  Army  was  in  a  peculiar  sense  her 
own  possession  made  her  constantly  sensitive  of  any  encroach- 
ment on  that  principle.  Thus,  though  much  of  her  time  was 
spent  in  signing  commissions  for  officers,  she  would  not  listen 
to  a  plan  suggested  for  reducing  the  labour  :  "  The  Queen  does 
not  at  all  object  to  the  amount  of  trouble  which  the  signature 
of  so  many  commissions  has  hitherto  entailed  upon  her,  as 
she  feels  amply  compensated  by  the  advantage  of  keeping 
up  a  personal  connection  between  the  Sovereign  and  the 
Army."  (ib.  ii.  219,  July  14,  1848.)  Fourteen  years 
later,  however,  when  the  arrears  of  such  documents  to  be 
signed  amounted  to  16,000,  she  welcomed  the  Bill  of  March 
1862  which  dispensed  with  her  autograph  for  the  issue  of 
commissions,  though  it  left  her  free  to  resume  the  practice  at 
any  time.  Of  that  freedom  she  availed  herself  again  early  in 
the  nineties,  and  when  in  1895  the  work  again  fell  into  arrears 
she  declined  the  suggestion  of  again  desisting  from  the 
personal  labour  involved.     (Lee's  Victoria,  515.) 

From  the  same  feeling  she  was  very  jealous  of  any 
inroad  on  the  principle  of  the  Crown's  being  the  only  fountain 
of  honour  :  as  when  after  the  Crimean  War  a  return  was 
moved  for  in  the  Commons  of  all  the  decorations  of  the  Bath 
given  since  the  war.  She  immediately  felt  her  prerogative 
imperilled,  writing  to  Lord  Palmerston  on  February  14,  1856, 
that  she  hoped  "  the  Government  would  not  allow  the  House 
of  Commons  so  much  further  to  trespass  upon  the  preroga- 
tives of  the  Crown  as  now  virtually  to  take  also  the  control 
over  the  distribution  of  honours  and  rewards  into  their  hands." 
(Letters,  iii.  218.) 

For  the  same  reason  she  set  her  face  strongly  against 
the  proposal  that  marks  of  military  honour  might  be  con- 


286  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

ferred  by  the  East  India  Company  :    it  would  set  up  two 
fountains  of  honour  in  the  realm. 

A  debate  took  place  in  the  Commons  on  July  7,  1858,  of 
which  next  day  the  Queen  complained  to  Lord  Derby,  the 
Prime  Minister.     She  was  "  shocked  to  find  that  in  several 
important    points    her    Government    has    surrendered    the 
prerogative  of  the  Crown  "  ;   the  proposal  to  appoint  Indian 
Civil  servants  by  examination  was  an  infringement  on  the 
"  undoubted  right  and   duty  of  the  Executive  "  to   make 
regulations  about  the  servants  of  the  Crown  ;    whilst,  as  to 
the   right  of   the   Crown  to  declare   war  and   make   peace, 
Mr.  Gladstone's  proposal  that  without  Parliamentary  sanction 
the  Queen's  Indian  forces  should  not  be  used  outside  India 
placed  her  in  a  position  "  of  less  authority  than  the  President 
of   the   American   Republic."     She    complained   bitterly    of 
Bills  on  such  subjects,   after  having  been  introduced  into 
Parliament    with    her    approval,    being    materially    altered 
without  her  further  sanction,  and  she  reminded  Lord  Derby 
that  she  looked  to  him  as  head  of  the  Government  to  protect 
those  prerogatives,   which  formed  an  integral   part   of  the 
Constitution."     {Letters,  iii.  374,  July  8,  1858.) 

The  danger  of  lack  of  definition  on  such  points  is  shown 
by    the    further    history    of    the    Competitive-examination 
innovation.     The    Commons'    rejection   by   thirteen   of   the 
Lords'  amendments   on  the  subject   placed  the   Queen,   as 
she  complained  to  Lord  Derby  on  July  29,   1858,   "  in   a 
most  unpleasant  dilemma."     Whilst  agreeing  to  adopt  Lord 
Derby's   advice  to  accept  the  decision  as  final  rather  than 
risk   another  defeat   and   raise  a  struggle   over   the   Royal 
prerogative,  she  could  "  hardly  sit  still  and  from  mere  want 
of  courage  become  a  party  to  the  most  serious  inroad  that 
had  yet  been  made  upon  it."     She  felt  herself  bound  to 
resist  the  principle  that  the    Sovereign  was  no  longer  the 
source    of    all    appointments    under   the    Crown  ;     and   the 
extension  of  the  principle  from  civil  to  military  appoint- 
ments, as  advocated  by  some,  would  reduce  the  Sovereign 
"  to     a     mere     signing    machine."      (ib.     iii.     377.)      With 
such  thorny  problems,   dangerous  and  undefined,   did   our 
unwritten  Constitution  then  bristle,  as  it  bristles  still. 

The  relationship  between  the  Crown  and  the  Army  led 


The  Crown  and  the  Army  287 

to  certain  incidents  which  help  to  illustrate  the  struggle 
that  continued  for  a  large  part  of  the  Queen's  reign  between 
herself  and  Parliament  over  the  Army.  On  the  formation 
of  Lord  Palmerston's  second  Government  in  July  1859,  the 
Queen,  writing  to  him  on  July  6,  expressed  herself  as  "  much 
shocked  "  because  without  previous  consultation  with  herself 
the  Government  had  moved  for  a  Committee  of  the  Commons 
to  inquire  into  the  Military  Department.  She  requested  to 
have  the  names  of  the  Committee  submitted  to  her.  Lord 
Palmerston,  in  his  reply,  touched  on  the  constitutional  side 
of  the  Queen's  remonstrance.  He  protested  that  the  idea 
that  the  Crown  could  act  in  military  matters  without  any 
official  adviser  responsible  for  its  acts  would  be  "  at  variance 
with  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  Constitution,  and 
would  be  fraught  with  danger  to  the  Crown,  because  then 
the  Sovereign  might  be  held  personally  answerable  for* 
administrative  acts,  and  would  be  brought  personally  in 
conflict  in  possible  cases  with  public  opinion  :  a  most 
dangerous  condition  for  a  Sovereign  to  be  placed  in." 
(ib.  iii.  449.)  And  this  after  the  Queen  had  been  more 
than  twenty  years  on  the  throne. 

In  April  1850  the  Duke  of  Wellington  urged  the  Prince 
to  become  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army.  The  reason 
for  the  proposal  was  that  "  with  the  daily  growth  of  the 
democratic  power  the  Executive  got  weaker  and  weaker, 
and  it  was  of  the  utmost  importance  to  the  stability  of  the 
Throne  and  the  Constitution  that  the  command  of  the  Army 
should  remain  in  the  hands  of  the  Sovereign,  and  not  fall 
into  those  of  the  House  of  Commons."  (Martin,  ii.  255.) 
Fortunately,  the  Prince  was  deaf  to  the  voice  of  the  tempter, 
but  the  incident  shows  the  reality  of  the  peril  which  was  so 
narrowly  escaped. 

On  the  death  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington  in  1852  the 
office  of  Commander-in-Chief,  which  had  been  instituted  in 
1793,  to  release  the  King  from  the  personal  command  of 
the  Army,  and  which  continued  till  1904,  gave  rise  to  a 
correspondence  between  the  Prince  and  Lord  Palmerston 
which  showed  some  doubt  as  to  the  person  in  whom  the 
appointment  to  the  office  was  vested.  Lord  Palmerston, 
who  had  been  Secretary  at  War  from  1809  to  1828,  claimed 


288  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

it  for  the  Secretary  at  War.  But  the  Prince  considered  this 
only  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  Lord  Palmerston  to  arrogate 
supreme  power  for  his  office  for  which  there  was  no  founda- 
tion.    {Letters,  ii.  477.)     Thus  the  struggle  continued. 

The  idea  that  the  Army  and  Navy  belonged  rather  to 
the  Crown  than  to  the  nation  led  naturally  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  size  of  both,  and  the  policy  for  which  they  were 
to  be  used,  were  more  a  matter  for  the  Crown  than  for 
Parliament.  In  the  anarchical  condition  of  Europe  during 
the  nineteenth  century  preparations  for  emergencies  were 
always  necessary,  but  the  practical  question  then,  as  it  is 
now,  was  one  of  degree,  and  should  naturally  rest  for  decision 
with  the  Cabinet  of  the  time.  But  the  Queen  and  the 
Prince  never  took  this  view  ;  they  thought  the  matter  their 
special  province,  and  constantly  harried  the  responsible 
Ministers  with  suggestions  which  differed  little  from  com- 
mands. Thus  the  Queen  wrote  to  Lord  Derby  on  November 
13,  1852,  that  she  "  must  most  strongly  impress  Lord  Derby 
with  the  necessity  of  referring  to  our  defenceless  state,  and 
the  necessity  of  a  large  outlay,  to  protect  us  from  foreign 
attack."  (ib.  ii.  484.)  And  when  the  heavy  cost  of 
the  Crimean  War  naturally  drove  Ministers  to  think  of 
economies  at  its  close,  and  made  them  consider  retrench- 
ments in  the  services  before  even  peace  was  signed,  the 
Court  protested  immediately.  The  Queen  wrote  to  Lord 
Palmerston  on  April  12,  1856,  that  she  trusted  and  expected 
that  such  retrenchments  should  be  carried  out  "  with  great 
moderation  and  very  gradually,"  and  that  our  sufferings  and 
difficulties  might  not  be  forgotten,  for  "  to  the  miserable 
reductions  of  the  last  thirty  years  are  entirely  owing  our 
state  of  helplessness  when  the  war  began  "  ;  and  it  would 
be  unpardonable  if  another  war,  as  possibly  with  France, 
found  us  in  the  same  condition  again,     (ib.  iii.  239.) 

The  Court  condemned  all  retrenchments  made  since  1826, 
and  all  the  Ministers  who  had  effected  them  during  that 
time.  It  did  its  best  to  veto  further  retrenchments.  On 
May  21,  1856,  the  Queen  expressed  herself  to  Lord  Palmerston 
as  "  very  anxious  about  the  fixing  of  our  Peace  Establish- 
ment, both  for  the  Army  and  the  Navy."  She  scanned 
with  displeasure  the  speeches  in  Parliament  that  advocated 


The  Crown  and  the  Army  289 

economy,  and  was  "  sorry  to  find  Mr.  Disraeli,  Mr.  Gladstone, 
and  Sir  Francis  Baring  agreeing  with  the  doctrine  of  the 
Times  and  Lord  Grey  that  we  ought  not  to  improve  our 
state  of  preparation  for  war."  (ib.  iii.  243,  244.)  In  a 
letter  to  Lord  Panmure,  Secretary  for  War  in  Palmerston's 
Ministry  of  1855,  she  complained  that  "  the  absence  of  all 
plans  for  our  defence  is  a  great  evil,  and  hardly  credible. 
There  should  exist  a  well-considered  general  scheme  for  each 
place  supported  by  a  detailed  argument  ;  this  when  approved 
by  the  Government  should  be  sanctioned  and  signed  by  the 
Sovereign,"  etc.     (ib.  iii.  269.) 

In  a  letter  to  Lord  Palmerston  of  July  19,  1857,  the 
Queen  complained  vigorously  of  the  retrenchments  that  had 
been  made  to  "  meet  the  Parliamentary  pressure  for  economy." 
She  complained  of  "  this  miserable  reduced  Peace  Establish- 
ment," and  insisted  on  the  necessity  of  immediate  measures 
of  which  the  principle  might  be  left  to  the  Cabinet,  but  the 
details  to  the  unfettered  execution  of  the  military  authorities. 
For  "  the  present  position  of  the  Queen's  Army  is  a  pitiable 
one."  (Martin,  iii.  78-82.)  As  the  Prince  Consort  wrote  to 
the  Prince  of  Prussia  that  same  month,  in  reference  to  the 
Indian  Mutiny  :  "  The  English  public  is  calm  and  composed, 
the  Ministry  too  much  so,  and  therefore  we  are  constantly 
digging  our  spurs  into  their  sides."     (ib.  iii.  88.) 

In  all  this  the  responsibility  of  Ministers  was  thought  of 
as  due  to  the  Crown  rather  than  to  Parliament.  And  the 
spur  was  naturally  galling.  On  August  2,  1857,  Lord  Palmer- 
ston was  told  that  the  measures  taken  by  the  Government 
for  the  salvation  of  India  were  "  by  no  means  adequate  to  the 
emergency."  In  not  laying  up  a  store  of  troops  nor  formed 
reserves  for  a  long  struggle  we  were  "  always  most  short- 
sighted, and  had  finally  to  suffer  either  in  power  and  reputa- 
tion, or  to  pay  enormous  sums  for  small  advantages  in  the 
end — generally  both."  The  Queen  hoped  the  Cabinet  would 
look  the  question  boldly  in  the  face.  Lord  Clarendon  read 
this  letter  to  the  Cabinet,  and  promised  the  Queen  to  "  use 
his  utmost  endeavours  to  induce  his  colleagues  to  admit  the 
indisputable  fact  that  we  are  utterly  defenceless.  The  thought 
of  this  haunts  Lord  Clarendon  by  day  and  by  night."  (ib. 
iv.  91.)  Indisputable  as  our  command  of  the  sea  was,  no 
19 


290  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

amount  of  it  sufficed  to  relieve  Lord  Clarendon  or  the  Court 
from  fears  of  invasion.  So  on  August  4  the  Queen  again 
dug  the  spur  into  the  unhappy  Palmerston  :  "  The  defence- 
less state  of  our  shores,  now  that  the  Army  has  been  reduced 
to  eighteen  effective  battalions,  and  the  evident  inclinations 
of  the  Continental  Powers,  chiefly  France  and  Russia,  to 
dictate  to  us  with  regard  to  the  Oriental  Question,"  naturally 
led  her  to  consider  our  naval  preparations.  She  demanded 
a  report  on  the  force  of  screw-ships  of  the  Line  and  other 
classes  ;  she  did  not  want  a  mere  general  answer  on  such 
subjects  from  the  Lords  of  the  Admiralty,  but  detailed  reports 
from  the  Admirals  in  the  ports,  and  that  without  the  loss  of 
unnecessary  time.  She  requested  Lord  Palmerston  to  have 
these  her  wishes  carried  out.  {Letters,  iii.  307.)  On  August 
22  it  was  :  "  The  Queen  must  repeat  to  Lord  Palmerston 
that  the  measures  hitherto  taken  by  the  Government  are  not 
commensurate  with  the  magnitude  of  the  crisis."  (ib.  iii. 
308.)  In  vain  the  Prime  Minister  tried  to  pacify  the  Queen  ; 
for  she  replied  the  same  day  that  whilst  she  herself,  the  House 
of  Lords,  the  House  of  Commons,  and  the  Press  all  called  out 
for  vigorous  exertion,  the  Government  alone  took  an  apolo- 
getic line,  anxious  to  do  as  little  as  possible  and  to  reduce 
as  low  as  possible.  Again  Lord  Palmerston  tried  to  reassure 
her,  but  in  vain ;  for  on  August  25  she  wrote  :  "  The  Queen 
has  received  Lord  Palmerston's  letter  of  yesterday,  and 
must  say  she  is  deeply  grieved  at  her  want  of  success  in  im- 
pressing upon  him  the  importance  of  meeting  the  present 
dangers  by  agreeing  on  and  maturing  a  general  plan  by  which 
to  replace  in  kind  the  troops  sent  out  of  the  country."  (ib. 
iii.  311.)  When  one  remembers  that  all  the  Queen's  letters 
were  virtually  the  Prince's,  the  only  wonder  is  that  with  the 
scolding  tone  so  often  employed  towards  the  Prime  Minister 
the  friction  between  the  Court  and  Palmerston  did  not  come 
to  an  open  rupture. 

The  situation  is  illuminated  by  the  Prince's  letters  to  his 
real  counsellor,  Stockmar,  at  the  time.  "  The  events  in 
India,"  writes  the  Prince,  "  are  very  tragical,  and  demonstrate 
the  utterly  decrepit  state  of  an  army  which  rests  upon  civil 
government  and  the  Press."  The  Government,  he  com- 
plained, were  ready  to  let  "  our  poor  little  army  be  wasted 


The  Crown  and  the  Army  291 

away,  and  to  make  fine  grandiose  speeches."  (Martin,  iv.  92.) 
On  September  7,  1857,  he  writes  :  "  The  Indian  news  con- 
tinues very  bad,  and  causes  us  much  anxiety.  Our  military 
organisations  for  averting  disasters  so  great  are  quite  inade- 
quate, and  we  have  to  bully  and  extort  from  the  Ministers 
bit  by  bit."  Palmerston  was  again  possessed  "  by  all  his 
juvenile  levity."  (ib.  iv.  125.)  Clearly  the  Prince  would 
have  preferred  an  army  solely  dependent  on  the  Crown. 

Even  Lord  Clarendon,  the  Court's  favourite  Foreign 
Minister,  said  that  he  underwent  such  lectures  from  the 
Prince  and  the  Queen  about  second  battalions  and  extra 
companies  that  his  head  was  "  in  a  terrible  confusion  about 
the  subject  of  recruiting."  So  Lord  Granville  told  Lord 
Canning  in  a  letter  of  September  9,  1857.  (Fitzmaurice's 
Granville,  i.  259.)     The  spur  was  too  constant  for  comfort. 

On  December  14, 1857,  the  Queen  pressed  for  the  immediate 
formation  of  two  new  cavalry  regiments,  and  on  December  19 
she  sent  Lord  Panmure  her  orders  for  the  next  year's  army. 
"  She  wishes  now  to  lay  down  the  principle  which  she  thinks 
ought  to  guide  our  decision,  and  asks  Lord  Palmerston  to 
consider  it  with  his  colleagues  in  Cabinet.  .  .  .  What  the 
Queen  requires  is  that  a  well-considered  and  digested  esti- 
mate should  be  made  of  the  additional  regiments,  etc.  .  .  . 
Anything  else  than  this  will  not  leave  this  country  in  a  safe 
condition."  (Letters,  iii.  326.)  There  is  not  a  thought  in  all 
this  of  the  responsibility  of  the  War  Minister  to  the  Cabinet, 
or  of  the  Cabinet  to  the  country.  The  Crown  was  to  be  the 
director  and  dictator  in  all  such  matters. 

Well  therefore  could  the  Queen  write  to  King  Leopold  on 
January  12,  1858,  of  "  how  sound  and  monarchical  everything 
is  in  this  country  "  ;  and  could  boast  on  February  9  of  Prince 
Albert's  having  "  raised  monarchy  to  the  highest  pinnacle  of 
respect,  and  rendered  it  popular  beyond  what  it  ever  was  in 
this  country."  (ib.  iii.  334,  335.)  But  he  was  raising  it  to 
something  more  than  respect ;  he  was  raising  it  to  supreme 
power  in  the  State. 

So  far  did  this  go  that  it  began  to  be  of  more  importance 
what  the  Army  would  stand  than  of  what  Parliament  wished. 
For  not  only  did  the  Court  dislike  the  civil  government  of  the 
Army,  but  it  was  ready  to  throw  the  Army  into  the  scales 


292  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

against  Parliament.  When  the  House  of  Commons  passed  a 
resolution  in  favour  of  placing  the  whole  control  of  the  Army 
under  a  single  Minister,  the  Queen  told  Lord  Derby,  then  Prime 
Minister,  that  she  could  not  "  contemplate  the  possibility  of 
any  real  attempt  to  divest  the  Crown  of  its  prerogative  in  this 
instance.  The  Army  will  not,  she  feels  sure,  stand  it  for  a 
moment,  and  the  Queen  feels  sure  that,  if  properly  defined  and 
explained,  the  House  of  Commons  will  not  acquiesce  in  any 
such  disloyal  proceeding."     {Letters,  iii.  372,  June  4,  1858.) 

In  August  1858,  when  the  Queen  and  Prince  attended  the 
festivities  at  the  opening  of  the  arsenal  at  Cherbourg,  nothing 
was  pleasanter  than  the  civilities  exchanged  between  them 
and  the  French  Emperor.  But  the  Court's  mistrust  of  France 
was  incurable,  being  constantly  sustained  by  the  appre- 
hensions of  the  King  of  Belgium,  who  after  the  Cherbourg 
visit  gave  the  Queen  the  following  advice  :  "  Two  things 
can  be  done — (1)  to  make  every  reasonable  exertion  to 
remain  on  personal  good  terms  with  the  Emperor — which  can 
be  done.  One  party  in  England  says  it  is  with  the  French 
nation  that  you  are  to  be  on  loving  terms  ;  this  cannot  be,  as 
the  French  dislike  the  English  as  a  nation,  though  they  may 
be  kind  to  you  also  personally.  (2)  The  next  is,  instead  of  a 
good  deal  of  unnecessary  abuse,  to  have  the  Navy  so  organised 
that  it  can  and  must  be  superior  to  the  French.  All  beyond 
these  two  points  is  sheer  nonsense."     (ib.  iii.  375.) 

Under  such  influence  the  Prince  saw  nothing  in  the  com- 
pletion of  Cherbourg  but  the  facilities  it  afforded  for  the 
transport  of  a  French  army  to  our  shores  in  four  hours 
(Martin,  iv.  261)  ;  and  he  wrote  thus  to  the  Duchess  of  Kent : 
"  The  war  preparations  of  the  French  marine  are  immense, 
ours  despicable.  Our  Ministers  use  fine  phrases,  but  they 
do  nothing.  My  blood  boils  within  me."  (ib.  iv.  277.) 
So  immediately  on  their  return  he  and  the  Queen  pressed 
on  Lord  Derby  the  increase  of  the  Navy.  And  this  attitude 
of  panic,  which  greatly  cancelled  the  beneficial  effects  of 
the  Queen's  visit,  naturally  spread  to  the  public,  Cherbourg 
being  made  "  a  text  for  very  unmeasured  attacks  upon  France 
and  the  French  Emperor  by  some  of  our  public  men  and  many 
of  the  leading  Journals."     (ib.  iv.  277.) 

The    process    of    what    the    Prince    called    "  bullying " 


The  Crown  and  the  Army  293 

Ministers  never  stopped.  On  January  13,  1859,  the  Queen, 
in  view  of  the  estimates  for  the  year,  again  pressed  on  Lord 
Derby  additional  expenditure.  She  had  "  heard  it  rumoured 
that  the  Government  intended  to  propose  a  reduction  on  the 
estimates  of  9000  men  for  this  year.  She  trusted  that  such 
an  idea,  if  ever  entertained,  would  upon  reflection  be  given 
up  as  inconsistent  with  the  duty  which  the  Government  owed 
the  country."  For  England  would  not  be  listened  to  in 
Europe,  if  she  were  known  "  to  be  despicably  weak  in  her 
military  resources."     {Letters,  iii.  396.) 

The  Commission  on  the  Indian  army  was  then  about  to 
issue  its  report,  and  on  February  5,  1859,  she  wrote  to  Lord 
Derby,  insisting  that  the  Indian  army  should  remain  under 
the  Horse  Guards.  (Malmesbury's  Memoirs,  ii.  154.)  She 
declared  her  "  firm  determination  not  to  sanction  under  any 
form  the  creation  of  a  British  army,  distinct  from  that  known 
at  present  as  the  Army  of  the  Crown."  She  hoped  that  Lord 
Derby  would  not  consider  that  she  intended  by  her  letter 
"  unduly  to  influence  his  free  consideration  and  decision  as  to 
the  advice  he  might  think  it  his  duty  to  offer,  but  merely  to 
guard  against  his  being  taken  by  surprise,  and  to  prevent, 
if  possible,  an  unseemly  difference  between  herself  and  Lord 
Stanley.  She  was  impelled  to  the  apprehension  that  such 
might  arise  from  the  manner  in  which,  since  the  first  transfer 
of  the  Indian  Government  to  the  Crown,  every  act  of  Lord 
Stanley  had  uniformly  tended  to  place  the  Queen  in  a  position 
which  would  render  her  helpless  and  powerless  in  resisting  a 
scheme  which  certain  persons,  imbued  with  the  old  Indian 
traditions,  would  appear  to  wish  to  force  upon  the  Crown." 
(Letters,  iii.  404-5,  February  5,  1859.) 

Despite  the  Queen's  disclaimer  of  a  wish  for  an  answer, 
Lord  Derby  did  answer  this  letter  next  day.  He  said  that  the 
Queen's  letter  had  given  him  deep  pain,  and  that  he  feared  he 
might  feel  compelled  to  resign.  For,  though  she  disclaimed 
all  wish  to  influence  his  judgment,  she  distinctly  warned  him 
that  his  advice,  unless  tendered  in  a  particular  direction,  had 
no  chance  of  her  acceptance.  The  incident  closed  satisfac- 
torily, thanks  to  the  good  sense  shown  by  both  correspondents, 
but  it  serves  to  illustrate  the  friction  that  resulted  from  the 
indefinite  claims  of  the  Crown  in  the  military  department  of 


294  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

public  affairs.  {Letters,  iii.  404-10.)  Nor  was  the  question 
quite  settled  ;  for  on  February  13,  1859,  the  Queen  wrote 
to  General  Peel,  relying  "  with  confidence  that  when  the 
question  of  the  Indian  army  came  before  the  Cabinet,  General 
Peel  would  stoutly  defend  the  interests  of  the  Crown  and  the 
British  Army.  On  the  opinion  which  he  would  give  and 
maintain  much  of  their  decision  must  depend,  and  unless  he 
spoke  out  boldly  the  Indian  Secretary  (Lord  Stanley)  would 
have  it  all  his  own  way."  (ib.  iii.  410.)  Thus  did  the  Queen 
and  the  Prince  systematically  seek  to  prevail  over  their 
Ministers. 

And  this  feeling  of  antagonism  between  the  respective 
claims  of  the  Crown  and  of  Parliament  over  the  services 
continued  during  the  Prince's  life  and  for  long  after  his  death. 

The  process  by  which  the  Army  came  under  the  control  of 
Parliament  was  very  gradual,  but  was  quickened  by  the 
experiences  of  the  Crimean  War  in  1854  and  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War  of  1870. 

The  office  of  Commander-in-Chief,  instituted  in  1793,  set 
up  a  dual  control  of  the  Army,  the  Commander  being  over 
the  Horse  Guards,  and  regarding  as  his  subordinate  the 
Secretary  at  War,  who  was  over  the  War  Office.  The  Secre- 
tary at  War,  dating  from  Charles  II. 's  time,  was  not  made 
responsible  to  Parliament  till  1783,  and  the  Prince  Regent 
insisted  on  his  issuing  no  new  orders  without  previous 
communication  with  the  Commander-in-Chief.  In  1863 
the  Secretary  at  War  was  abolished,  and  his  duties  trans- 
ferred to  the  Secretary  of  State  for  War.  The  latter,  first 
instituted  in  1794,  was  responsible  to  Parliament,  and  his 
powers  grew,  after  much  confusion  of  functions  and  responsi- 
bilities, till  at  last  in  1870  the  Commander-in-Chief  was 
formally  declared  subordinate  to  the  Minister  of  War.  But 
till  the  Commander  was  abolished  in  1904  and  his  place  taken 
by  the  Chief  of  the  Staff,  relations  were  never  satisfactory 
nor  well  denned.  Sidney  Herbert,  as  Minister  of  War, 
wished  in  1860  to  abolish  the  office,  and  so  put  the  Army  under 
the  House  of  Commons  :  on  which  Lord  Malmesbury's 
comment  was  that  the  Queen  had  every  right  to  be  angry 
with  such  an  interference  with  the  rights  of  the  Crown, 
(ii.  217.)     And  there  was  evidently  an  attempt  on  the  part  of 


The  Crown  and  the  Army  295 

the  Crown  on  October  2,  1861,  to  remove  from  the  Secretary 
for  War  and  to  attach  to  the  Commander-in-Chief  the  com- 
mand and  discipline  of  the  Army,  and  military  appointments 
and  promotions  :  or,  in  other  words,  to  secure  for  the 
Crown  the  control  over  this  very  important  province  of 
military  affairs.  (Biddulph's  Cardwell  at  the  War  Office,  217, 
262.) 

The  remarkable  document  which  attests  this  attempt 
was  never  acted  on,  but  laid  aside,  and  only  found  by  chance 
in  1868  among  the  papers  of  Sir  George  Lewis,  Secretary  for 
War  at  the  time.  It  convinced  the  Gladstone  Government 
that  the  time  had  clearly  come  to  smother  the  fire  that  had 
been  smouldering  for  so  many  years,  and  amongst  the  Card- 
well  military  reforms  of  1870  none  was  more  important  than 
that  which  vested  the  direct  control  of  every  branch  of  Army 
administration  in  the  Secretary  for  War,  and  made  him  re- 
sponsible for  everything.  This  was  effected  by  the  War 
Office  Act  of  1870  (33  &  34  Vict.  c.  17),  and  by  subsequent 
Orders  in  Council.  (ib.  238-40  ;  Anson's  Constitution,  ii. 
pt.  ii.  200-8.)  Another  sign  of  the  wish  to  do  away  with 
the  dual  control  was  the  removal  of  the  Horse  Guards 
Staff  to  the  same  building  as  that  occupied  by  the  Secretary 
for  War  in  Pall  Mall.     (Biddulph,  142.) 

But  all  these  military  reforms,  of  which  the  foregoing  is 
the  barest  outline,  found  in  the  Queen  a  strong  opponent 
as  so  many  invasions  by  Parliament  on  the  peculiar  province 
of  the  Crown.  Twice  had  she  resisted  or  postponed  pro- 
posals for  the  subordination  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  to 
the  Secretary  of  State  for  War,  as  through  the  former  she 
claimed  to  control  the  Army  without  let  or  hindrance  from 
Ministers  or  Parliament,  and  it  was  with  much  reluctance 
that  on  June  28,  1870,  she  signed  the  Order  in  Council  which 
removed  the  Commander  from  his  sole  and  immediate 
dependence  on  the  Crown.  (Lee's  Victoria,  409.)  She 
equally  disliked  the  Reform  of  1895,  which,  by  limiting  the 
tenure  of  the  Commandership  to  five  years  instead  of  for 
life,  finally  destroyed  the  fiction  that  the  Commander  was 
the  personal  representative  of  the  Sovereign,     (ib.  512.) 

Nor  was  it  with  more  satisfaction  that  in  1871,  in  order 
to  avoid  a  conflict  between  the  two  Houses  over  the  abolition 


296  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

of  the  purchase  of  commissions  in  the  Army,  she  cancelled 
the  warrant  that  originally  legalised  it.  The  question  had 
come  up  in  1856,  but  had  been  no  less  strongly  opposed  by 
Lord  Palmerston  and  Lord  Panmure  than  by  herself.  It 
was  then  shelved  by  the  familiar  device  of  referring  it  to  a 
Commission,  and,  to  justify  the  names  selected  to  serve, 
Lord  Panmure,  in  a  letter  to  the  Queen  of  April  20,  1856, 
frankly  avowed  that  the  object  of  the  selection  was  to 
choose  "  men  in  whom  the  House  of  Commons  had  con- 
fidence and  in  whose  hands  as  a  body  the  system  of  purchase 
was  safe." 

The  report  of  Lord  Airey's  Committee,  proposing  to 
"  unlink  "  battalions,  in  order  to  remedy  certain  defects  in 
the  short -service  system,  placed  the  Minister  at  issue  with 
the  Queen  ;  for  whilst  he  thought  the  proposal  distinctly 
reactionary,  the  Queen  wrote  to  him  that  she  much  re- 
gretted that  it  had  "  not  been  thought  advisable  to  unlink 
battalions."  She  strongly  opposed  Childers'  scheme  for  the 
linking  of  battalions  and  giving  regiments  territorial  de- 
signations, as  likely  to  weaken  their  esiprit  de  corps.  {Lee, 
4  and  2.)  In  reference  to  the  other  far-reaching  changes 
involved  in  his  plan  she  insisted  against  his  coming  to  any 
decision  till  it  had  been  first  submitted  to  herself.  {Life 
of  Childers,  ii.  38,  39.)  And  to  the  opposition  of  the  Queen 
was  added  the  equally  strong  opposition  of  the  Duke  of 
Cambridge,  the  Commander-in-Chief,  who  was  "  distressed 
to  find  himself  so  strongly  at  variance  with  some  of  the 
Secretary's  decisions.  Such  differences  were  most  dis- 
agreeable to  him  when  they  were  working  so  pleasantly  and 
cordially  together."     {ib.  ii.  41,  November  20,  1880.) 

So  adverse  was  the  Queen  to  all  these  changes  that  Mr. 
Childers  found  himself  obliged  to  remind  the  Queen  of  the 
change  of  Government  :  the  late  Conservative  Government 
had  a  majority  that  was  content  with  things  as  they  were, 
whereas  he  himself  had  to  deal  with  a  majority  of  160  pledged 
to  administrative  reform,     {ib.  i.  277.) 

And  her  old  fear  of  diminished  armaments  still  haunted 
her.  When  news  came  of  the  defeat  at  Maiwand  in  the 
Afghan  War,  she  told  Childers  through  her  Secretary  that 
she  trusted  no  reductions  in  the  Army  were  contemplated, 


The  Crown  and  the  Army  297 

and  asked  whether  on  the  contrary  an  increase  should  not 
rather  be  thought  of.     (ib.  i.  273,  August  2,  1880.) 

The  relationship  between  the  Commander-in-Chief  and 
the  War  Minister  still  remained  an  impossible  one,  and  the 
strange  idea  was  held  "  by  nearly  all  military  officers,  that 
the  Secretary  of  State  was  usurping  power  and  acting 
illegally."  (ib.  ii.  70,  March  16,  1882.)  The  following 
extract  from  the  Duke  of  Cambridge's  letter  to  Childers 
of  August  7,  1881,  in  reference  to  the  latter's  wish  to  drop 
the  title  of  the  Horse  Guards,  shows  the  position  : 
"  The  command  of  the  Army  rests  with  the  Commander-in- 
Chief,  as  representing  the  Sovereign ;  the  Secretary  of 
State  is  the  high  political  official  who  controls  all  Army 
matters  and  represents  the  Department  for  which  he  is 
responsible  to  Parliament.  But  he  certainly  does  not 
command  the  Army.  It  would  be  impossible  for  a  civilian 
to  do  so.  .  .  .  Consequently  the  command-in-chief  cannot 
be  merged  in  the  Secretary  of  State  under  present  conditions, 
and  my  position  must  have  an  individuality,  which  it  is 
essential  and  necessary  to  maintain.  Letters  and  orders 
therefore  emanating  from  me  cannot  be  simply  dated  from 
the  War  Office."     (ib.  ii.  52.) 

So  unsatisfactory  became  the  situation  that  on  January 
19,  1882,  Mr.  Childers  in  a  speech  at  Pontefract  felt  it  time 
to  become  explicit  on  the  subject.  He  laid  special  stress 
on  one  of  the  many  adverse  criticisms  directed  against  his 
policy,  namely,  against  the  suggestion  "  that  of  late  years 
successive  Secretaries  of  State  for  War  had,  in  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Army,  been  encroaching  on  the  functions  of 
others.  The  Army,  these  critics  say,  is  the  Army  of  the 
Crown  ;  we,  Secretaries  of  State  forsooth,  want  to  make  it 
the  army  of  the  House  of  Commons.  The  Crown,  they  say, 
governs  the  Army  through  the  Commander-in-Chief.  The 
Secretary  of  State  is  a  mere  financial  officer,  who  has  gradually 
intruded  on  the  province  of  the  Crown  by  means  of  the 
power  of  the  purse." 

This  Mr.  Childers  declared  a  mere  delusion.  The  Queen 
was  the  undoubted  head  of  the  Army,  as  she  was  of  the 
Navy,  and  of  every  other  branch  of  the  public  service,  and 
as  such  could  do  no  wrong.     But   she  only  could  do  no 


298  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

wrong  because  all  her  acts  were  the  acts  of  her  responsible 
Minister.  The  functions  of  the  Secretary  for  War  had  been 
laid  down  with  great  precision  by  the  Order  of  the  Queen 
in  Council  of  June  1870,  and  under  him  were  three  great 
departments,  responsible  to  him,  and  including  the  Com- 
mandership-in-Chief.  "  No  act  of  discipline  can  be  exercised, 
no  appointment  or  promotion  can  be  made,  no  troops  can 
be  moved,  no  payments  can  be  made,  without  the  approval, 
expressed  or  implied,  of  the  Secretary  of  State."  (Life  of 
Childers,  ii.  57.)  And  thus  the  constitutional  principle  of  the 
subordination  of  the  services  to  Parliament  was  strongly  and 
conclusively  reasserted.  But  it  shows  how  we  were  drifting 
in  the  wrong  direction,  that  after  more  than  forty  years  of 
the  Queen's  reign  it  should  have  been  necessary  to  affirm  that 
the  Army  belonged  to  the  nation,  and  not  to  the  Crown. 

But  though  the  changes  indicated  above  seemed  to  settle 
definitely  that  the  Army  was  the  nation's  and  subject  to 
Parliamentary  control,  still  the  position  of  the  Commander- 
in-Chief  remained  not  altogether  a  happy  one.  With  direct 
access  to  the  Sovereign,  and  as  sole  military  adviser  to  the 
Secretary  for  War,  he  continued  to  occupy  a  semi-independent 
position  in  relation  to  the  latter  ;  nor  was  it  till  after  the 
Hartington  Commission  had  reported  in  1890  in  favour  of 
the  abolition  of  the  office,  and  the  transfer  of  its  duties  to 
a  Chief  of  the  Staff,  that  the  Commandership-in-Chief  came 
to  an  end  in  1904,  when  the  new  Army  Council  was  created, 
and  therewith  the  Constitutional  question  was  set  at  rest. 


CHAPTER    IX 

Queen  Victoria  and  Mr.  Gladstone 

In  a  letter  to  the  Queen  of  February  26,  1868,  Lord  Beacons- 
field,  then  Mr.  Disraeli,  alluded  to  her  constant  communion 
with  great  men,  to  her  knowledge  and  management  of  im- 
portant transactions,  added  to  her  natural  great  abilities,  as 
having  formed  an  experience  that  gave  her  an  "  advantage  in 
judgment  which  few  living  persons,  and  probably  no  living 
prince,  could  rival."  (Life,  iv.  591.)  And  this  was  said,  not 
from  flattery,  but  from  conviction  ;  for  it  formed  the  basis 
of  his  celebrated  speech  at  the  Crystal  Palace  in  defence  of 
Constitutional  Monarchy  on  April  3,  1872,  where  he  argued 
that  it  was  one  great  merit  of  our  system,  in  view  of  the 
tendency  of  party  government  to  warp  men's  intelligence, 
that  before  a  Minister  can  introduce  a  measure  to  Parliament, 
he  must  first  submit  it  to  an  intelligence  that  is  "  superior 
to  all  party,  and  entirely  free  from  all  influences  of  that 
character."  (Speeches,  ii.  493.)  Yet  from  George  III. 
onwards  such  superiority  to  party  is  the  last  thing  that  can 
be  predicated  of  any  of  our  Sovereigns.  Queen  Victoria 
ended  as  strongly  on  the  Conservative  side  of  politics  as  she 
had  begun  strongly  on  the  other,  and  her  whole  reign  was  one 
of  steadily  progressive  Conservatism.  If  she  complied  with 
her  constitutional  duty  of  submission  to  her  Ministers,  it  was 
often  a  most  reluctant  submission. 

Nor  does  Lord  Beaconsfield's  defence  take  any  account 
of  the  extraordinary  difficulty  which  such  anticipated  reluct- 
ance places  in  the  way  of  a  Minister  whose  mandate  from  the 
electorate  is  for  the  introduction  of  specific  reforms.  During 
the  whole  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  career,  for  instance,  it  was  the 
tragedy  of  his  life  to  be  confronted  with  the  opposition 
of  a  Sovereign  whom  Lord  Morley  has  described  as  "  a 
personage  with  a  singular  fixity  of  nature."     (ii.  425.)    In 


300  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

comparing  a  monarchy  like  ours  with  other  forms  of  govern- 
ment, it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  under  republican  systems 
the  Executive  power  never  remains  for  more  than  a  limited 
time  in  the  hands  of  one  person,  and  that,  therefore,  under 
such  systems,  statesmen  often  suffer  from  less  discourage- 
ment than  is  their  inevitable  portion  where  Royal  opposition 
to  their  policy  may  extend  from  decade  to  decade. 

Mr.  Gladstone's  experience  affords  a  conspicuous  illus- 
tration of  this  truth.  The  same  passage  of  events  that  made 
him  more  and  more  Liberal  made  the  Queen  more  and  more 
Conservative,  till  at  last  the  divergence  between  them  stopped 
hardly  short  of  avowed  hostility. 

The  difference  began  when  Mr.  Gladstone  and  other 
Peelites  forsook  Lord  Palmerston's  Ministry  in  1855,  in  the 
middle  of  the  Crimean  War,  and,  much  to  the  offence  of 
the  Court,  threw  the  weight  of  their  influence  on  the  side 
that  wished  to  stop  the  war.  But  in  1864  this  sin  of  Mr. 
Gladstone  was  atoned  for  by  his  efforts  in  sympathy  with 
the  Queen's  to  oppose  the  policy  of  war  with  Germany  on 
behalf  of  Denmark  to  which  Lord  Palmerston  and  Lord 
Russell  seemed  to  be  drifting.  In  the  following  year,  Lord 
Palmerston  died  (October  18,  1865),  and  the  Queen  turned 
to  Lord  Russell  as  his  successor  as  Prime  Minister,  writing 
to  him  that  she  could  turn  to  no  other,  "  an  old  and  tried 
friend  of  hers  to  undertake  the  arduous  duties  of  Prime 
Minister,  and  to  carry  on  the  Government."  (Walpole's 
Russell,  ii.  407.)  In  reality,  she  was  glad  of  a  change  which 
enabled  her  favourite  Lord  Clarendon  to  take  Lord  Russell's 
place  at  the  Foreign  Office.  (Lee,  362.)  In  this  new  Govern- 
ment, afterwards  described  by  the  Duke  of  Argyll  as  one 
which  "  had  no  faith  in  any  principle,  no  enthusiasm  in  any 
cause,  and  no  fidelity  to  any  leader  "  (Autobiography,  ii.  249), 
Mr.  Gladstone,  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  was  promoted 
to  the  leadership  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  on  February 
19,  1866,  the  Queen  wrote  him  a  most  gracious  letter  express- 
ing her  gratification  at  the  accounts  she  heard  from  all  sides 
of  the  admirable  manner  in  which  he  had  conducted  his 
leadership  in  the  House  of  Commons.     (Morley,  ii.  157.) 

But  these  halcyon  days  had  no  long  stay.  Lord  Russell 
was  resolved  to  press  his  Reform  Bill,  and  when  the  time  came 


Queen   Victoria  and  Mr.  Gladstone     301 

that  he  had  to  warn  the  Queen  of  his  anticipated  defeat,  she 
declared  that  she  would  accept  of  no  resignations  whilst  the 
imminent  trouble  between  Austria  and  Prussia  threatened 
an  eruption  of  the  European  volcano.  Yet  she  would  not 
be  dissuaded  from  moving  from  Windsor  to  Balmoral,  and 
insisted  on  a  ministerial  crisis  being  averted  at  all  costs. 
When  the  inevitable  defeat  happened,  and  the  resignations 
followed  her  to  Balmoral,  she  protested  strongly,  and  when 
Lord  Russell  declined  to  reconsider  his  resignation,  she 
resented  his  withdrawal  as  an  act  of  desertion,  nor  easily 
suffered  her  anger  to  cool.  (Lee,  368.)  Gladstone,  of 
course,  incurred  his  share  of  the  Royal  displeasure  on  this 
occasion. 

With  Lord  Derby's  third  Government,  which  followed, 
the  Queen  was  on  more  sympathetic  relations,  both  on 
domestic  and  foreign  politics.  The  Emperor  Napoleon's 
proposals  in  May  1866  for  a  European  Congress  had  met, 
unfortunately,  with  its  usual  fate,  and  so  violently  did  the 
Times  assail  the  Emperor  that  Lord  Granville  wrote  personally 
to  Mr.  Delane,  the  editor,  to  complain  of  its  articles  :  to 
which  Delane  replied  that  he  could  write  by  that  night's 
post  to  put  a  stop  to  further  annoyance  of  the  Emperor 
(Fitzmaurice's  Granville,  i.  505) :  an  incident  which  indicates 
how  usefully  control  of  the  Press  may  on  occasion  be  exercised 
by  Government. 

After  Mr.  Disraeli's  resignation  had  followed  the  decisive 
General  Election  of  November  1868,  the  Queen,  with  no 
alternative  to  Mr.  Gladstone,  wrote  him  a  most  gracious 
letter,  to  tell  him  that,  with  one  or  two  exceptions,  she 
would  impose  no  restrictions  on  his  arrangement  of  the 
various  offices  as  seemed  to  him  best  for  the  public  service. 
(December  1,  1868,  Morley,  ii.  253.)  And  in  this  spirit 
the  Disestablishment  of  the  Irish  Church  was  carried  through, 
though  with  this,  as  with  all  Gladstone's  subsequent  legisla- 
tion on  behalf  of  Ireland,  the  sympathies  of  Royalty  were 
frigid  in  the  extreme. 

It  was  not  till  Card  well's  army  reforms,  trenching,  as 
the  Queen  held,  on  her  personal  monarchical  rights,  that 
the  first  difficulty  of  a  long  series  of  difficulties  with  Mr. 
Gladstone    arose,     (ib.   ii.   360.)     Her   correspondence   with 


302  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

her  Prime  Minister  in  1871  on  the  abolition  of  purchase  in 
the  Army  was,  as  Lord  Morley  describes  it,  copious,  and  doubt- 
less constitutes  a  large  portion  of  the  five  or  six  hundred 
holograph  letters  from  the  Queen  to  Mr.  Gladstone  which  will 
probably  never  be  disentombed  from  Hawarden.  (Morley, 
ii.  526.) 

The  Queen's  estrangement  from  Liberalism  went  on 
apace  under  experience  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  first  and  energetic 
Liberal  Government.  Lord  Granville  in  a  letter  to  Mr. 
Gladstone  of  April  18,  1869,  noted  that  the  Queen's  con- 
fidence even  in  himself  was  becoming  less,  that  she  complained 
of  his  tone  being  too  decided  in  writing  to  her,  that  even 
the  influence  of  Lord  Clarendon  was  on  the  wane,  and  that 
the  Queen,  owing  to  her  great  knowledge  and  experience, 
was  becoming  a  "  serious  power  "  in  the  State.  (Fitz- 
maurice's  Granville,  ii.  51.)  To  the  other  causes  of  estrange- 
ment came  to  be  added  loud  complaints  of  the  Queen's 
continued  seclusion,  and  when  these  assumed  a  louder  note  in 
1870,  the  Queen  appealed  in  vain  to  Mr.  Gladstone  for  some 
declaration  in  her  defence.  She  complained  of  the  "  heart- 
less cruel  "  persecution  she  endured  from  the  Press,  and  in 
the  autumn  still  avowed  her  anger  at  the  silence  of  her 
Ministers.  (Lee,  411,  413.)  In  1871,  when  considerable 
republican  sentiment  began  to  make  itself  felt,  Mr.  Glad- 
stone endeavoured  to  check  the  rising  popular  discontent  by 
exhorting  the  Queen,  not  without  success,  to  take  the  only 
course  which  was  calculated  to  allay  it.  (Morley,  ii.  426, 
427.) 

In  the  meantime  also  the  Imperial  policy  of  closer  union 
with  the  colonies  which  Mr.  Disraeli  put  forward  in  1872  made 
a  strong  appeal  to  the  Queen's  sentiments,  so  that  when  in 
March  1873  the  defeat  of  the  Irish  University  Bill  led  Mr. 
Gladstone  to  resign  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  Queen 
"accepted  his  resignation  with  alacrity."  (Lee,  423.)  Mr. 
Disraeli's  refusal  to  take  his  place  at  the  moment  restored 
his  rival  to  power  for  a  brief  season.  But  relief  was  not 
long  delayed,  for  in  January  1874  Mr.  Gladstone's  unwilling- 
ness to  meet  the  higher  expenditure  demanded  by  the  services 
ended  on  January  21  in  his  asking  the  Queen's  assent  to  a 
dissolution,  and  the  Election  that  followed  transferred  the 


Queen  Victoria  and  Mr.  Gladstone     303 

reins  of  power  from  Liberal  to  Conservative  hands,  to  the 
mighty  satisfaction  of  the  Queen. 

The  Ministry  of  Mr.  Disraeli,  who  became  the  Earl  of 
Beaconsfield  in  1876,  proved  as  interesting  in  our  external 
policy  as  it  was  dull  in  domestic  Legislation.  The  Minister 
was  a  man  after  the  Queen's  own  heart,  a  believer  in  govern- 
ment by  sovereigns  and  statesmen  rather  than  by  Parlia- 
ments, a  disbeliever  in  popular  government.  (Holland's 
Duke  of  Devonshire,  i.  267.)  He  held  all  Stockmar's  ideas 
of  the  necessity  of  exalting  the  Crown  at  the  expense  of  the 
legislature,  but  with  the  advantage  over  Stockmar  that  he 
had  the  power  to  put  such  ideas  into  force.  No  wonder  the 
Queen  was  pleased.  His  policy  of  Imperialism  also  made  a 
strong  appeal  to  her,  and  full  rein  was  to  be  given  to  a 
spirited  foreign  policy. 

The  influence  of  Lord  Beaconsfield's  Imperialism  on  the 
Queen  dated  from  a  period  long  antecedent  to  the  time  when 
power  enabled  him  to  put  his  ideas  into  practice.  Thus  in 
reference  to  the  India  Bill  of  1858,  which  transferred  the 
Government  of  India  from  the  East  India  Company  to  the 
Crown,  he  spoke  of  the  change  in  a  letter  to  the  Queen  of 
January  24,  1858,  as  "  only  the  antechamber  of  an  Imperial 
palace  "  ;  adding  that  "  Your  Majesty  would  do  well  to 
deign  to  consider  the  steps  which  are  now  necessary  to 
influence  the  opinions  and  affect  the  imaginations  of  the 
Indian  populations.  The  name  of  Your  Majesty  ought  to  be 
impressed  on  their  native  life."  (Life,  iv.  166.)  As  it  was 
in  1876,  when  the  Queen  was  made  Empress  of  India. 

And  an  Imperial  or  spirited  policy  had  had  one  great 
success.  In  1867  the  peace  of  Europe  had  been  threatened 
by  the  question  of  Luxemburg  :  would  Prussia  remove  her 
garrison,  at  the  request  of  France  ?  The  Queen  was  opposed 
to  a  "  paltry  and  fatalistic  attitude,"  and  begged  Mr.  Disraeli 
repeatedly  to  get  Lord  Stanley,  our  Foreign  Secretary,  to 
adopt  a  more  vigorous  policy.  After  the  crisis  had  passed, 
she  not  unjustly  claimed  the  credit  for  the  preservation  of 
peace,  and  boasted  of  the  restoration  of  our  lost  prestige. 
(July  29,  1867,  ib.  iv.  472,  473.)  Mr.  Disraeli  expressed 
the  hope  to  her  that  Lord  Stanley  would  ultimately 
be  the  Minister  who  would  destroy  and  shatter    to  pieces 


304  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

"  the  decaying  theory  and  system  of  non-intervention," 
being  sure  of  her  sympathy  in  that  view.  (Life,  iv.  474, 
August  16,  1867.) 

Moreover,  a  certain  affinity  of  spirit  between  the  Prince 
Consort  and  Lord  Beaconsfield  could  not  fail  of  its  attraction 
to  the  Queen.  An  anti-Russian  policy,  vigorous  to  the  point 
of  risk,  and  a  leaning  to  absolutist  government,  were  the 
leading  ideas  of  both.  When  the  Prince  had  died,  Mr.  Dis- 
raeli's admiration  for  him  expressed  itself  in  terms  of  extrava- 
gant but  pleasing  eulogy.  The  Prince,  he  said,  was  the  only 
person  he  had  ever  known  who  had  realised  the  Ideal  ;  no 
one  else  whom  he  had  known  had  ever  approached  it.  The 
nearest  approach  to  him  in  history  was  Sir  Philip  Sidney. 
The  name  of  Albert  would  be  accepted  by  posterity  as  "  the 
master-type  of  a  generation  of  profounder  feeling  and  vaster 
range  than  that  which  he  formed  and  guided  with  benignant 
power."  (ib.  iv.  394,  April  25,  1863.)  And  the  sincerity 
of  these  sentiments  is  proved  by  the  very  similar  language 
with  which  Mr.  Disraeli  wrote  of  him  to  Count  Vitzthum, 
the  Saxon  Minister  :  "  With  Prince  Albert  we  have  buried 
our  Sovereign.  This  German  Prince  has  governed  England 
for  twenty-one  years  with  a  wisdom  and  energy  such  as  none 
of  our  kings  have  ever  shown."  Had  he  lived,  he  would 
have  given  us,  "  while  retaining  all  constitutional  guarantees, 
the  blessings  of  absolute  Government."     (ib.  iv.  383.) 

But  as  every  step  in  the  path  of  Imperialism  was  strenu- 
ously opposed  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  stood  to  his  rival  for 
the  next  six  years  as  opposed  as  Ahriman  to  Ormuzd  in 
Persian  theology,  the  late  Prime  Minister  became  as  a  poli- 
tician more  and  more  distasteful  to  the  Queen.  He  personi- 
fied all  the  ideas  she  disliked  the  most.  But  the  antagonism 
was  relieved  for  the  time  by  Lord  Hartington's  becoming 
for  those  six  years  the  leader  of  the  Liberal  Opposition 
in  the  Commons  and  nominally  of  the  Liberal  party  in  the 
country. 

The  purchase  of  the  Suez  Canal  shares  in  1875  from  the 
Khedive  was  the  first  step  in  the  Imperialist  policy,  of  which 
we  are  far  yet  from  having  seen  the  end.  It  proved  a  great 
financial  success,  for  the  shares,  bought  for  four  million, 
were  worth  thirty  million  in  1000.     But  against  this  must 


Queen  Victoria  and  Mr.  Gladstone      305 

be  set  the  long  estrangement  in  which  it  involved  us  with 
France,  and  still  more  the  jealousy  of  Germany,  to  appease 
which  in  the  eighties  great  colonial  concessions  had  to  be 
made  to  Germany,  and  Heligoland  bartered  for  concessions 
in  Africa.  The  bombardment  of  our  east  coast  towns  in  1914 
was  a  link  in  the  long  chain  of  events  of  which  the  first  link 
was  the  purchase  of  the  Suez  Canal  shares.  Gladstone, 
vaguely  conscious  of  the  unknown  risks,  was  opposed  to  a 
scheme  which  had  one  of  its  greatest  admirers  in  the  Queen. 

A  further  note  of  divergence  was  struck  by  Gladstone's 
avowed  dislike  of  the  Queen's  assumption  in  1876  of  the  title 
of  Empress  of  India.  But  it  was  the  Balkan  troubles  that 
began  in  1875  and  lasted  till  after  the  Russo-Turkish  War  and 
the  return  of  Lord  Beaconsfield  and  Lord  Salisbury  from  the 
Congress  of  Berlin  in  July  1878  "  with  peace  and  honour  " 
which  brought  to  a  head  the  differences  between  our  Im- 
perialist and  anti-Imperialist  schools  of  thought,  with  the 
Queen  heartily  in  the  former  camp  and  Gladstone  as  leader 
of  the  other.  The  Bulgarian  atrocities  of  1875  seem  to  have 
made  as  little  impression  politically  on  the  Queen  as  they  did 
on  her  Prime  Minister,  whilst  Gladstone's  intervention  against 
our  giving  any  support  to  Turkey  and  thus  embarrassing 
Lord  Beaconsfield  greatly  exasperated  the  Queen.  {Lee, 
437.)  How  far  Lord  Beaconsfield's  policy — his  violent  threat 
of  war  against  Russia  in  his  Guildhall  speech  of  November  9, 
1876  ;  his  sending  the  fleet  to  the  Dardanelles  in  January 
1878  ;  his  calling  out  the  reserves  and  bringing  troops  from 
India  a  month  later — succeeded  in  averting  war,  and  how 
far  Gladstone  by  his  eighteen  months'  counteraction  of 
Beaconsfield's  policy  "  day  and  night,  week  by  week,  month 
by  month,"  prevented  us  from  actually  joining  the  Turks, 
may  be  disputed  to  the  end  of  time  ;  but  the  resignation  of 
Lord  Carnarvon  in  January  1878  and  of  Lord  Derby,  tenta- 
tively at  the  same  time  and  finally  in  February  1878,  shows 
how  very  narrowly  we  escaped  from  war  at  that  time.  And 
in  all  these  events  the  evil  genius  of  the  country,  in  the 
Queen's  eyes,  was  Mr.  Gladstone. 

Our  semi-pro-Turkish  policy  in  the  Russo-Turkish  War 
led  directly  to  the  second  Afghan  War  ;  for  it  was  the  sending 
of  our  fleet  to  the  Dardanelles,  the  calling  out  the  reserves, 
20 


306  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

and  the  summoning  of  troops  from  India  in  the  early  months 
of  1878  that  led  Russia,  as  a  counter-move,  to  send  an  open 
mission  to  Cabul,  whilst  an  attack  contemplated  by  us  in  those 
parts  caused  her  to  send  troops  to  her  eastern  frontier  in 
Central  Asia.  (Lord  Hartington  in  Holland's  Devonshire,!.  227.) 
To  this  counter-move  Lord  Lytton  and  Lord  Salisbury  replied 
by  insisting  on  the  Ameer's  receiving  also  a  British  mission. 
Hence  the  Afghan  War,  beginning  in  November  1878,  and 
marked  in  its  unhappy  course  by  such  incidents  as  the 
massacre  of  the  Cavagnari  expedition  at  Cabul  in  September 

1879,  as  predicted  the  previous  year  by  Lord  Lawrence  (ib. 
i.  235),  and  the  defeat  of  Burrows  at  Maiwand  on  July  27, 

1880,  and  the  siege  of  Kandahar,  happily  relieved  by  Sir 
Frederick  Roberts  on  September  1.  Foremost  in  opposition 
to  the  whole  policy  of  the  war  or  of  trying  to  force  a  British 
Resident  on  the  Ameer  was  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  denounced 
it  as  not  only  an  error  but  a  sin,  and  foremost  accordingly  he 
became  in  the  Queen's  displeasure.  Lord  Beaconsfield,  in 
defending  his  policy,  implored  the  House  of  Lords  to  "  brand  " 
with  the  reprobation  of  the  Peers  of  England  the  deleterious 
dogmas  of  the  Peace  party  (ib.  i.  233),  but  the  reprobation  of 
the  country  as  a  whole  was  more  unmistakably  shown  in  the 
General  Election  of  April  1880,  which  was  expressed  decisively 
against  Lord  Beaconsfield,  and  in  favour  of  the  very  Peace 
party  which  the  Peers  implored  and  were  so  ready  to  reprobate. 

The  episode  was  one  of  the  bitterest  political  experiences 
of  the  Queen  ;  for  it  not  only  meant  the  reversal  of  the  whole 
policy  she  had  sanctioned,  but  the  loss  of  a  Prime  Minister 
who  had  been  the  most  congenial  to  her  of  all  she  had  known 
since  she  parted  with  Lord  Melbourne.  Though  the  Election 
had  been  won  by  Gladstone,  not  by  Lord  Hartington,  and 
the  public  voice  called  for  Gladstone,  constitutional  etiquette 
demanded  that  the  first  offer  of  the  vacant  Premiership 
should  be  made  to  Lord  Hartington,  and  earnestly  the 
Queen  strove  for  the  services  of  the  more  moderate  and  safer 
guide.  But  at  their  first  interview  on  April  22  he  advised 
her  to  send  for  Mr.  Gladstone.  "  She  did  not  like  it,  and  made 
a  good  deal  of  resistance."     (Hartington  in  Holland,  i.  278.) 

So  strong  was  the  Queen's  repugnance  to  the  idea  that 
Lord   Hartington's   biographer  could   only  publish  extracts 


Queen   Victoria  and  Mr.  Gladstone       307 

from  the  private  memorandum  which  Lord  Hartington 
wrote  about  his  interview,  (ib.  i.  276.)  When  at  the 
Queen's  request  he  saw  Gladstone  that  evening,  he  '*did  not 
think  it  desirable  to  communicate  tb  Mr.  Gladstone  how  great 
was  the  Queen's  reluctance."  (ib.  i.  273.)  But  Gladstone, 
as  Lord  Hartington  had  warned  the  Queen,  would  consent 
to  no  post  but  the  highest  ;  he  would  take  no  subordinate 
office  either  under  Lord  Hartington  or  Lord  Granville  ;  he 
would  only  promise  an  independent  support  to  such  a  Govern- 
ment. So  the  Queen's  refusal  to  offer  him  the  higher  post 
brought  matters  to  a  tangle,  (ib.  i.  277.)  A  second  visit  to 
Windsor,  however,  the  next  day  by  himself  and  Lord  Gran- 
ville ended  by  reconciling  the  Queen  to  the  inevitable,  and 
her  summoning  Gladstone  to  an  audience  that  same  evening. 

Dean  Wellesley  told  Sir  Horace  Rumbold  of  the  extreme 
nervousness  with  which  Gladstone  faced  the  ordeal.  (Further 
Recollections,  195.)  The  Queen,  however,  received  him,  to 
use  his  own  words,  "  with  that  perfect  courtesy  from  which 
she  never  deviated."  When  she  complained  to  him  of  expres- 
sions of  his  which  had  given  her  pain,  he  justified  them  on  the 
ground  that  he  had  not  been  in  the  responsible  position  of 
leader  of  a  party  or  of  a  candidate  for  office.  When  she  told 
him  good-naturedly  that  he  would  have  to  bear  the  conse- 
quences of  his  Midlothian  speeches,  he  readily  assented ; 
and  to  her  expressed  hope  that  his  general  policy  would  be 
conciliatory  he  replied  that  the  occasion  for  strong  opposition 
had  been  now  removed.     (Morley,  ii.  626-8.) 

But  the  omens  of  harmony  were  not  propitious.  The 
Queen  mistrusted  the  new  Government.  She  gave  the  Cabinet 
to  understand  that  she  would  insist  on  the  full  exercise  of 
her  right  of  comment  on  all  proposals  before  they  were 
matured  ;  they  were  to  take  no  decision  till  their  completed 
plans  were  submitted  to  her.  (Lee,  451.)  She  was  resolved 
to  hold  them  in  hand. 

Difficulties  immediately  arose  over  the  policy  of  reversal. 
The  Liberal  party  loudly  called  for  the  recall  of  Sir  Bartle 
Frere  from  the  High  Commissionership  of  Cape  Colony,  hold- 
ing him  responsible  for  the  war  with  the  Zulus  in  1879.  The 
Queen  complained  of  this  as  part  of  the  tendency  of  the  House 
of  Commons  to  trench  on  the  province  of  the  Executive  ;  to 


1 


308  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

which  Gladstone  replied  by  admitting  the  fact,  but  upholding 
as  within  the  functions  of  Parliament,  and  especially  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  the  right  of  challenge  and  censure  of  the 
High  Commissioner.  (Morley,  iii.  7.)  Nevertheless,  as  he 
told  the  Queen  on  May  28, 1880,  he  did  all  he  could  to  avert  a 
movement  for  Frere's  dismissal.  But  on  July  29  the  Minister 
found  himself  under  "  the  painful  duty  "  of  submitting  to 
her  on  behalf  of  the  Cabinet  a  copy  of  a  ciphered  telegram 
recalling  Sir  Bartle  Frere. 

The  Afghan  situation  raised  a  further  difference  of  opinion. 
Was  there  to  be  a  complete  withdrawal  from  Kandahar  ? 
Lord  Ripon,  the  Viceroy,  favoured  it,  but  not  the  majority 
of  the  Indian  Council,  and  one  of  the  strongest  opponents  of 
the  withdrawal  in  England  was  the  Queen.  (Holland,  i.  304.) 
She  desired  to  take  military  opinion  on  the  subject,  and 
expressed  to  Lord  Hartington  on  September  8,  1880,  great 
contempt  for  mere  political  opinion  :  "  To  give  up  Kandahar 
solely  because  the  members  of  the  present  Government,  when 
in  opposition,  and  unaware  of  all  the  real  causes  of  war,  were 
unfavourable  to  the  policy  of  their  predecessors  would  be  a 
most  deplorable  course  to  follow  and  would  lead  to  inevitable 
confusion  and  disaster."  She  was  ready  to  admit  that  it 
might  be  desirable  to  hand  over  Kandahar  to  the  Afghan 
Government,  but  she  wished  "to  be  convinced  of  this  by 
the  opinions  of  competent  military  commanders,  and  not  to 
accept  as  final  a  decision  that  is  only  based  on  political 
and  party  expediency."  (ib.  i.  305,  306.)  Though  General 
Roberts  considered  the  military  retention  of  Kandahar  of 
"  vital  importance,"  the  Government  decided  against  him, 
Lord  Hartington  on  November  11,  1880,  sending  to  the 
Viceroy  a  decisive  dispatch  to  that  effect,  and  ending  with 
a  strong  protest  against  any  measure  which  might  involve 
the  permanent  occupation  by  British  troops.  The  Queen 
objected  to  the  latter  expressions  as  too  binding  on  the  future, 
reverting  again  to  the  vanity  of  platform  pledges  :  "  How 
often,  in  the  heat  of  opposition,  in  the  desire  to  injure  the 
Government,  are  assertions  made  and  promises  held  out 
at  public  meetings  and  on  the  hustings,  which  are  frequently  « 
afterwards  found  to  be  most  inconvenient  and  detrimental.'''' 
(ib.  i.  310.)     Ultimately  in  April  1881  the  last  British  troops   • 


Queen  Victoria  and  Mr.  Gladstone        309 

were  withdrawn,  but  to  the  last  it  was  difficult  to  reconcile 
the  Queen  to  a  measure  which  ran  counter  to  military  opinion. 
(ib.  i.  316.) 

The  early  eighties  were  difficult  years,  with  Ireland  and 
Egypt  presenting  simultaneous  problems  of  exceeding  per- 
plexity. And  in  both  problems  the  Queen's  sympathies 
were  morewith  Lord  Hartington  than  with  her  Prime  Minister. 
Lord  Hartington  strongly  opposed  the  Compensation  for 
Disturbance  Bill,  by  which  in  1880  the  Gladstone 
Government  sought  to  alleviate  Irish  distress  (ib.  i. 
335),  and  the  rejection  of  that  measure  by  the  Lords  had 
his  full  approval.  That  rejection  led  to  fresh  disorder  in 
Ireland,  and  fresh  disorder  led  to  a  demand  for  fresh  coercion, 
and  for  a  suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act.  Lord  Hart- 
ington's  attitude  on  this  occasion  "  made  it  look  as  if  not 
only  the  Cabinet  but  the  Liberal  party  must  break  up  "  on 
November  19,  1880.  (Lord  Esher  in  Holland,  i.  331.)  The 
difference  was  ultimately  compromised  by  a  judicious  mixture 
of  coercion  and  land  reform.  But  Lord  Hartington  liked  the 
new  Land  Bill  as  little  as  he  had  liked  the  Compensation  Bill 
of  the  previous  year.  The  Bill  gave  the  three  F's  ;  judicially 
fixed  rents,  gave  fixity  of  tenure  so  long  as  they  were  paid, 
and  empowered  the  tenants  to  sell  their  tenancy.  Lord 
Hartington  on  April  6,  1881,  told  Gladstone  that  he  found  it 
"  a  hard  morsel  to  swallow,"  and  begged  that  he  should  not 
be  asked  to  speak  in  its  defence  more  than  could  be  helped. 
(Holland,  i.  340.)  The  only  Government  measure  of  which 
Lord  Hartington  approved  was,  as  he  said,  the  prosecution 
of  the  Land  League,  (ib.  i.  335.)  He  complained  of  the 
Government's  relying  too  much  on  the  power  of  conciliation 
and  justice,  and  being  too  sentimental  about  the  use  of  force. 
(ib.  i.  336.)  But  of  force  there  was  soon  plenty  ;  for  under 
the  new  coercion  Act  the  Government  packed  Parnell  off  to 
prison,  and  before  the  winter  of  1881  was  over,  about  a  thou- 
sand Irishmen  were  in  prison  on  suspicion,  without  any  form 
of  trial.  Lord  Hartington  was  for  a  "temporary  union" 
between  our  two  parties,  and  for  a  political  truce,  pending 
the  settlement  of  the  Nationalist  agitation.  Gladstone's 
position  was  no  easy  one,  with  Hartington  and  the  Queen 
disliking  or  thwarting  every  step  he  took. 


310  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

The  Phoenix  Park  murder  in  May  1882,  by  the  removal 
of  Lord  Frederick  Cavendish,  the  brother  of  Lord  Hartington 
and  a  nephew  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  relaxed  a  tie  between  Gladstone 
and  his  reluctant  colleague  which  Lord  Frederick  had  done 
much  to  strengthen,  and  thenceforth  their  divergence  in- 
creased apace.  The  measure,  promised  in  the  Queen's  speech 
of  1881,  of  County  Councils  for  Ireland,  almost  produced  a 
rupture  in  December  1882.  On  January  25,  1883,  Lord 
Hartington  told  Lord  Granville  that  he  saw  no  prospect  of 
his  being  able  to  support  such  a  measure  ;  he  thought  Ireland 
required  a  strong  Government,  and  he  was  opposed  to  taking 
away  any  of  the  powers  of  the  Executive,  and  placing  them 
in  the  hands  of  the  enemies  of  the  Government ;  for  such 
bodies  as  were  proposed  would  only  use  their  power  for  the 
embarrassment  of  the  Government  and  the  further  destruc- 
tion of  the  landlords.  (Holland,  i.  382-9.)  His  opposition  led 
to  the  postponement  of  the  measure,  the  Government  taking 
up  in  its  place  the  thorny  problem  of  an  extension  of  the 
franchise  and  redistribution  of  seats,  which  was  destined  to 
bring  about  an  even  more  acute  crisis,  that  all  but  wrecked 
the  Government  in  December  1883. 

Throughout  this  Irish  episode  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  Lord  Hartington  more  fairly  reflected  the  mind  of  the 
Queen  than  Gladstone  did,  and  it  is  conceivable  that  the 
Queen's  instinct  was  right  which  had  led  her  to  wish  for 
a  Hartingtonian  rather  than  for  a  Gladstonian  Ministry. 
Certainly  events  would  have  been  different  had  the  Queen's 
wishes  prevailed  ;  but  whether  they  would  have  been  better 
must  be  left  to  speculation. 

The  politics  of  those  years  can  only  be  understood  by 
some  reference  to  those  of  Germany.  After  the  war  of  1870 
a  large  party  arose  in  Germany  which  hankered  after  a 
German  colonial  empire,  but  according  to  Lord  Odo  Russell, 
our  ambassador  at  Berlin,  though  the  Crown  Prince  was  in 
sympathy,  Bismarck  at  that  time  was  not.  All  he  desired 
were  coaling  stations  ;  colonies  needing  the  protection  of 
a  powerful  fleet  he  regarded  as  a  cause  of  weakness.  (To 
Lord  Granville  on  February  11,  1873,  in  Fitzmaurice's 
Granville,  ii.  337.) 

But  as  a  fact  Bismarck's  desire  for  a  colonial  empire 


Queen  Victoria  and  Mr.  Gladstone       3 1 1 

dated  back  at  least  as  far  as  1865,  for  he  had  in  that  year 
given  the  Dutch  Minister  at  Vienna  to  understand  that 
without  colonies  Prussia  could  never  become  a  great  mari- 
time Power,  and  that  he  wanted  Holland  less  for  its  own 
sake  than  for  its  wealthy  colonies.     (Morley,  ii.  320.) 

In  those  days  the  fears  of  the  famous  German  statesman 
centred  on  Russia.  He  dreaded  a  Franco-Russian  Alliance, 
which  might  result  in  a  simultaneous  invasion  of  Germany 
from  the  east  and  the  west.  For  that  reason  he  wished, 
not  only  to  avoid  all  conflict  with  England,  but  to  establish 
friendship  with  this  country.  He  looked  on  England  as 
the  leading  Peace  Power  in  Europe.  (Fitzmaurice,  ii.  201, 
209.)  And  this  at  a  time  when  a  large  section  of  the  German 
Press  was  bribed  heavily  by  the  French  Government,  and 
still  more  heavily  by  the  Russian,  to  be  violently  antagonistic 
to  this  country,  (ib.  ii.  274,  275.)  He  complained  that  for 
the  preceding  eight,  years  England  had  repelled  his  constant 
desire  for  an  Anglo-German  alliance.  A  good  effect  was 
produced  by  a  visit  to  Bismarck  in  Berlin  by  Lord  Goschen 
on  his  way  to  Constantinople,  but  English  diplomacy  re- 
mained suspicious.  In  vain  had  Lord  Odo  Russell  striven 
to  produce  better  relations.  "  For  ten  years,"  he  wrote  on 
February  19,  1881,  ';  have  I  preached  confidence  in  Bismarck 
as  a  means  of  success  in  foreign  policy,  but  in  vain.  I 
never  could  overcome  the  deep-rooted  distrust  his  wish  for 
a  cordial  understanding  with  England  inspired  at  home." 
(ib.  ii.  228.) 

Lord  Granville's  policy,  however,  improved  matters,  for 
on  November  19,  1881,  Lord  Ampthill  (Lord  Odo  Russell) 
wrote  to  him  :  "  With  Bismarck  we  are  on  excellent  terms, 
and  can  at  any  moment  be  on  the  very  best,  if  required,  for 
he  has  always  earnestly  wished,  for  the  good  of  Germany, 
to  establish  a  practical  alliance  with  England,  like  that 
which  existed  between  France  and  England  during  the  late 
Empire,  but  was  never  able  to  inspire  the  requisite  confidence 
at  home  to  inspire  it."  In  1883  Bismarck  was  more  than 
ever  anxious  about  the  security  of  Germany's  eastern 
frontiers  against  Russia. 

But  by  1884  a  great  desire  for  colonial  expansion  had 
gradually  come  to  the  surface  in  Germany,  and  Bismarck 


312  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

saw  the  importance  of  falling  in  with  it.  The  first  suggestion 
of  a  cession  of  Heligoland  to  Germany  was  made  on  May  17, 
1884,  at  an  interview  between  Lord  Granville  and  the  German 
ambassador,  Count  Munster.  "  Count  Munster  said  it  was 
as  good  as  impossible  that  Germany  and  England  should  ever 
be  at  war,  but  the  cession  of  Heligoland  would  strengthen 
the  good  feeling  of  Germany  towards  this  country." 
(Fitzmaurice,  ii.  351.)  Some  twelve  years  before  Lord 
Granville  had  consulted  the  Admiralty  and  the  War  Office 
about  the  island,  and,  though  the  Admiralty  was  strong  on 
its  importance  to  us,  the  War  Office  thought  there  was  none. 
(ib.  ii.  361.)  Sir  John  Gorst  in  1884  proposed  its  cession 
to  Germany,  to  no  effect ;  but  ultimately  Lord  Salisbury  in 
1890  parted  with  it  in  exchange  for  Zanzibar  and  for  sundry 
German  claims  in  Uganda  and  the  Upper  Nile.  On  August 
10,  1890,  Germany  took  formal  possession  of  it. 

Unfortunately,  this  German  desire  for  colonial  expansion 
coincided  with  a  violent  German  Press  campaign  against 
everything  English,  and  Bismarck's  policy  of  friendship 
gave  way  to  one  of  jealousy  and  mistrust,     (ib.  ii.  358.) 

But  there  was  another  reason  for  German  hostility  in 
those  years,  and  that  was  the  advance  of  English  democracy 
under  the  Liberal  Government.  Lord  Ampthill  on  August 
16,  1884,  the  year  when  we  were  extending  the  franchise  to 
the  agricultural  labourers,  actually  wrote  to  Lord  Granville  : 
"  The  progress  of  democracy  in  England  is  a  cause  of  very 
serious  alarm  to  the  Sovereigns  and  Governments  ;  and 
they  propose  to  meet  it  by  consolidating  a  Monarchical 
League  between  Germany,  Russia,  and  Austria  :  a  sort  of 
revival  of  the  Holy  Alliance."     (ib.  ii.  363.) 

Our  equivocal  position  in  Egypt  necessitated  the  con- 
ciliation of  Germany  by  some  concessions  to  her  colonial 
ambitions,  and  therefore,  contrary  to  the  wishes  of  Australia 
and  New  Zealand,  Gladstone  consented  to  Germany's 
obtaining  a  footing  in  New  Guinea  and  other  Pacific  islands. 
The  continued  hostility  of  Germany  he  justly  regarded  as 
a  greater  danger  and  evil  than  the  temporary  irritation  of 
our  own  colonies.  (ib.  ii.  430.)  And  the  cession  of 
Heligoland  by  Lord  Salisbury  must  be  attributed  to  the 
same  motive. 


Queen  Victoria  and  Mr.  Gladstone       313 

And  if  Egypt  complicated  our  foreign  polities,  no  less 
did  it  add  to  the  difficulties  of  our  domestic  politics.  Our 
dual  financial  control  with  France,  established  in  1876,  soon 
led  to  difficulties,  and  our  occupation,  at  first  professedly 
and  intentionally  temporary,  quickly  assumed  another 
aspect.  By  1882  the  position  had  become  so  confused  that 
a  Conference  of  the  Powers  was  summoned  at  Constanti- 
nople. The  Sultan,  hoping  to  divide  France  and  England, 
sent  a  telegram  on  June  25,  1882,  by  which  he  conferred  on 
England  the  exclusive  control  :  a  proposal  which  found  a 
strong  supporter  in  the  Queen.  She  complained  of  the 
rejection  of  the  proposal  by  Gladstone  and  Granville,  with- 
out consulting  the  Cabinet,  as  contrary  to  regular  usage. 
(Morley,  iii.  79,  80.) 

The  bombardment  of  Alexandria  on  July  11,  1882, 
followed  by  the  defeat  of  Arabi  Pasha  at  Tel-el-Kebir  on 
September  13,  1882,  virtually  made  Egypt  a  British  pro- 
tectorate. Bright  resigned  office,  and  Gladstone  in  November 
was  with  some  difficulty  prevented  by  his  colleagues  from 
retiring.  (Holland,  i.  378.)  It  ended  in  his  transferring  to 
Mr.  Childers  the  Chancellorship  of  the  Exchequer,  and  in 
Lord  Hartington's  passing  from  the  Indian  to  the  War 
Office.  Other  changes  were  more  difficult.  The  admission 
of  Sir  Charles  Dilke  to  the  Cabinet  as  President  of  the  Local 
Government  Board  provoked  some  resistance  from  the 
Queen  ;  for  had  not  Sir  Charles  made  some  very  republican 
speeches  in  his  time  ?  Lord  Morley  says  that  any  conflict 
with  the  Queen  tried  Gladstone  more  than  anything,  and 
such  conflict  there  had  to  be.  The  Prime  Minister's  diary 
for  December  11,  1882,  has  the  entry  :  "  Off  at  12.15  to 
Windsor  in  the  frost  and  fog.  Audience  of  Her  Majesty 
at  3.  Most  difficult  ground,  but  aided  by  her  beautiful 
manners,  we  got  over  it  better  than  might  have  been  ex- 
pected." The  dispute,  though  stubborn,  ended  as  Gladstone 
wished.     (Morley,  iii.  99-101.) 

With  difficulty  the  reconstructed  Cabinet  held  together, 
so  divergent  were  opinions  about  Ireland  and  Egypt.  The 
grave  events  that  began  with  the  defeat  of  Hicks  Pasha  by 
the  Mahdi  in  September  1883  and  ended  with  the  death  of 
Gordon  at  the  fall  of  Khartoum  on  February  1885  shook 


314  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

the  Government  to  its  foundations.  The  whole  subsequent 
policy  of  the  abandonment  of  the  Soudan  was  repugnant 
to  the  Queen,  who  as  early  as  January  1884  had  vainly 
urged  prompt  action  for  the  rescue  of  the  Egyptian  garrisons 
in  that  region.  {Lee,  466.)  On  March  25,  1884,  she  tele- 
graphed to  Lord  Hartington  :  "  It  is  alarming.  General 
Gordon  is  in  danger  ;  you  are  bound  to  try  to  save  him  .  .  . 
you  have  incurred  fearful  responsibility."  (Holland,  i.  434.) 
And  when  on  February  5,  1885,  the  terrible  news  came  that 
the  relieving  expedition  had  arrived  too  late,  and  that  Gordon 
had  fallen,  she  sent  an  open  telegram,  not  one  in  cipher, 
as  usual,  to  Gladstone  and  Lord  Hartington  at  Holker  Hall, 
blaming  them  angrily  for  their  dilatory  action  :  to  which 
Gladstone  returned  a  long  answer,  which  may  be  read  in 
Lord  Morley's  biography,     (iii.  167.) 

And  simultaneously  with  the  question  of  how  and  when 
relief  should  be  sent  to  Gordon,  the  question  of  the  new 
County  Franchise  Bill,  and  its  accompaniment  or  not  by  a 
redistribution  of  seats,  marred  the  pleasure  of  that  summer 
of  1884.  The  Bill  had  passed  its  second  reading  by  340  to 
210  on  April  7,  and  unanimously  its  third  reading,  but  the 
Lords  threw  it  out,  first  by  a  majority  of  59,  and  then  by  one 
of  50,  because  a  measure  for  the  redistribution  of  seats  did 
not  go  with  it.  Thereupon  arose  a  mighty  agitation  in  the 
country,  Mr.  Gladstone  being  resolved  not  to  dissolve  on  the 
question,  and  declaring  that  if  he  dissolved  at  all,  it  should 
be  on  the  question  of  an  organic  change  in  the  hereditary 
Chamber.  (Morley,  iii.  130.)  But  to  prevent  the  stirring  of 
this  greater  question  was  the  main  reason  he  gave  for  making 
speeches  outside  his  own  constituency,  when  he  learnt  that 
his  doing  so  had  vexed  the  Queen,  (ib.  iii.  131.)  At  a  later 
period,  in  June  1886,  the  Queen  made  a  similar  objection 
to  the  speeches  he  had  made  at  Manchester  and  Liverpool  ; 
to  which  Gladstone  replied  that  the  leaders  of  the  Opposition 
had  made  a  rule  of  such  popular  agitation,  and  that  he  could 
not  conduct  the  contest  in  a  half-hearted  way,  or  omit  the 
use  of  any  means  for  placing  the  issue  before  the  country. 
(ib.  iii.  344.) 

The  deadlock  between  the  two  Houses,  which  our  Con- 
stitution seems  designed  to  produce,  looked  almost  hopeless, 


Queen  Victoria  and  Mr.  Gladstone       315 

and  but  for  the  Queen  might  have  become  so.  But  she,  ever 
on  the  side  of  compromise  and  pacification,  wrote  both  to 
Gladstone  and  to  Lord  Salisbury,  urging  an  exchange  of  views 
between  the  party  leaders  of  both  Houses.  So  on  November 
19,  1884,  Lord  Salisbury  and  Sir  Stafford  Northcote  went  to 
Downing  Street,  and  over  a  friendly  cup  of  tea  with  Mr. 
Gladstone  discussed  the  problem  in  dispute.  After  a  few 
more  meetings  the  whole  matter  was  settled  by  November 
27,  and  Mr.  Gladstone,  informing  the  Queen  of  the  happy 
issue  of  her  intervention,  said  that  "  his  first  duty  was  to 
tender  his  grateful  thanks  to  Her  Majesty  for  the  wise  and 
gracious  and  steady  influence  on  her  part  which  had  so  power- 
fully contributed  to  bring  about  this  accommodation,  and  thus 
averting  a  serious  crisis  of  affairs."  To  which  the  Queen 
replied  that  "  to  be  able  to  be  of  use  is  all  I  care  to  live  for 
now."  It  was  one  of  the  happiest  episodes  in  the  Queen's 
reign,  showing,  as  the  Irish  Church  case  had  shown,  how 
much  may  be  done  for  the  avoidance  of  political  friction 
by  a  monarch  who  has  the  will  and  capacity  to  intervene 
tactfully  between  rival  parties. 

The  same  wise  mediation  on  the  part  of  the  Queen  helped 
the  Constitution  to  surmount  the  next  crisis  that  occurred 
after  the  defeat  on  June  8,  1885,  of  the  Gladstonian  Ministry 
by  a  Tory  and  Irish  combination.  "  The  Queen's  satisfaction 
was  unconcealed,"  says  Sir  Sidney  Lee  (474).  But  for  many 
days  the  position  was  critical,  for  there  could  be  no  General 
Election  under  the  new  franchise  till  the  autumn,  and  how 
could  Lord  Salisbury  lead  a  stable  Government  with  a 
majority  against  him  without  some  promise  of  Mr.  Gladstone's 
forbearance  ?  It  needed  much  correspondence  between  the 
Queen  and  her  rival  Ministers  to  bring  about  an  accommoda- 
tion, but  she  succeeded  ;  and  Lord  Morley  closes  his  chronicle 
of  the  transaction  with  a  just  tribute  to  the  "  dignity  in  form, 
the  patriotism  in  substance,  the  common  sense  in  result, 
that  marked  the  proceedings  alike  of  the  Sovereign  and  of 
her  two  Ministers."  (iii.  208.)  And  it  was  in  the  middle  of 
this  trouble,  on  June  13,  that  the  Queen  offered  and  Glad- 
stone refused  the  honour  of  an  earldom. 

They  had  been  difficult  years.  During  the  whole  five 
there  had  been  hardly  any  part  of  the  Gladstonian  policy, 


316  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

domestic  or  foreign,  with  which  the  Queen  had  been  in 
sympathy.  Gladstone  himself  defined  her  attitude  to  the 
Liberal  Ministry  as  one  of  armed  neutrality.  (Morley, 
iii.  291.)  She  always  leant  more  on  military  than  on  political 
opinion,  and  for  that  reason  was  strongly  opposed  to  the 
abandonment  of  the  province  of  Dongola  after  the  fall  of 
Khartoum.  Her  warnings  and  protests  against  the  reversal 
policy  of  the  Government  had  been  frequent,  as  she  reminded 
Lord  Hartington  in  a  letter  of  May  11,  1885  ;  and  she  was  for 
prosecuting  the  campaign  against  the  Mahdi.  Lord  Harting- 
ton put  the  Cabinet  case  for  withdrawal  as  well  as  he  could, 
but  as  he  agreed,  according  to  his  biographer,  "  in  his  heart 
with  the  Queen,"  his  failure  to  convince  her  is  not  surprising. 

It  was  perhaps  fortunate  that  the  sudden  menace  of  war 
with  Russia  after  the  Penjdeh  incident,  when  on  March  30, 
1885,  Russian  troops  attacked  some  Afghan  troops  in  the 
disputed  territory  a  Russian-British  Commission  was  trying 
to  define  and  occupied  Penjdeh,  gave  a  good  additional  reason 
for  discontinuing  the  war  with  the  Mahdi.  The  quarrel  over 
the  Afghan  frontier  brought  us  as  near  to  war  with  Russia 
as  we  had  been  in  1878.  The  Queen  herself  on  March  4,  1885, 
telegraphed  to  the  Czar,  appealing  to  the  "  good  feelings  of 
her  dear  brother  to  say  all  he  could  to  avert  the  miseries 
which  might  ensue  from  an  armed  conflict  between  English 
and  Afghan  troops."  (Fitzmaurice,  ii.  423.)  Her  efforts 
for  peace,  coupled  with  the  firmness  of  her  Ministers, 
triumphed  over  the  Press.  The  reserves  were  called  out  ;  a 
vote  of  credit  for  eleven  millions  was  granted  ;  and  by  May  4 
the  incident  was  closed,  outstanding  differences  being  re- 
ferred to  arbitration.  But  how  displeasing  the  settlement  was 
to  the  Press  is  shown  by  Lord  Granville's  letter  of  May  29 
to  the  editor  of  the  Times,  in  which  he  defended  the  arrange- 
ment as  excellent  and  most  honourable  to  this  country  : 
"  If  the  influence  of  the  Times,"  he  said,  "  was  confined  to 
England,  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  freely  criticise 
the  conduct  of  the  Government,  if  it  was  thought  worthy 
of  blame.  But  I  can  conceive  no  national  object  to  be 
obtained  by  disparaging  leading  articles,  and  by  leaving 
unpruned  the  letters  of  partisan  and  uninformed  corre- 
spondents abroad  ;    the  result  being  to  give  to  Europe,  to 


Queen  Victoria  and  Mr.  Gladstone       317 

Russia,  and,  above  all,  to  India  the  idea  that  we  have  been 
humiliated  by  our  rivals."  (ib.  ii.  444.)  Not  often  has 
the  Press  been  so  plainly  rebuked.  But  the  war  party  was 
foiled.  On  May  19  Gladstone  wrote  to  Lord  Granville  of 
"  the  wrath  of  the  Tories  against  us  for  the  unpardonable 
sin  of  making  peace  with  Russia."  (ib.  ii.  455.)  But  it 
was  probably  the  one  incident  in  Mr.  Gladstone's  second 
Ministry  that  was  wholly  pleasing  to  the  Queen. 

But  Home  Rule  received  her  whole-hearted  aversion  ; 
for  ever  since  O'Connell's  agitation  for  Repeal  Ireland  had 
been  to  her  a  rebel  country,  to  be  ruled  with  the  strong  arm 
rather  than  by  any  concessions  to  her  grievances.  During 
the  critical  months  between  June  1885,  when  Gladstone  fell 
from  power,  to  January  1886,  when  he  recovered  it,  the  Irish 
question  became  acute,  and  after  the  General  Election 
in  November  to  December  19,  1885  had  returned  85  Irish 
members  in  favour  of  Home  Rule,  things  developed  rapidly. 
The  long-concealed  breach  between  Gladstone  and  Lord 
Hartington,  which  had  marred  the  whole  of  Gladstone's 
second  administration,  widened  to  an  open  split,  with  ultimate 
predominance  to  the  statesman  who  after  five  years  in  the 
same  Cabinet  with  Gladstone  could  write  of  his  chief  that 
he  could  "  never  get  on  with  him  in  conversation."  (Holland, 
ii.  86.)  The  Queen  bestirred  herself,  and  after  the  Election 
entered,  at  Lord  Salisbury's  instigation,  into  a  long  correspond- 
ence with  Mr.  Goschen,  with  a  view  to  effecting  a  coalition 
between  the  Conservatives  and  those  Liberals  who  were  ready 
to  secede.  (Elliot's  Goschen,  ii.  3.)  Her  success  was  com- 
plete, and  June  8,  1886,  which  saw  the  defeat  of  the  first 
Home  Rule  Bill  in  the  Commons  by  343  to  313,  was  as  red- 
lettered  a  day  to  her  as  it  was  a  black  one  for  the  people  of 
Ireland.  The  subsequent  Election,  which  gave  the  Unionist 
alliance  as  many  as  390  votes  against  280  to  the  Liberals 
and  the  Irish,  gave  "  unconcealed  delight  to  the  Queen." 
(Lee,  480.) 

i  On  July  30,  1886,  Gladstone  had  his  closing  audience 
with  the  Queen.  Seeing  that  it  was  probably  the  last  word 
he  might  have  writh  the  Sovereign  whom  he  had  served  for 
fifty-five  years,  he  thought  their  conversation  a  singular  one. 
When  he  had  left  her  in  1874  she  had  expressed  her  confident 


31 8  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

hope  in  his  lending  his  support  to  the  throne.  Not  a  word  of 
that  sort  was  said  on  this  occasion  ;  for  "  her  mind  and 
opinions  since  that  day  had  been  seriously  warped,"  and  the 
best  feature  of  the  interview  was  "  the  scrupulous  avoidance 
of  anything  which  could  have  seemed  to  indicate  a  desire  on 
her  part  to  claim  anything  in  common  with  me  "  ;  scarcely  a 
word  on  politics  ;  "  the  rest  of  the  conversation,  not  a  very 
long  one,  was  rilled  up  with  nothings.  It  is  rather  melancholy. 
But  on  neither  side,  given  the  conditions,  could  it  well  be 
helped."     {Morley,  iii.  348.)     Was  ever  anything  so  dismal  ? 

There  followed  the  six  years  of  Lord  Salisbury's  adminis- 
tration, which  was  brought  to  a  close  by  the  General  Election 
of  1892.  Lord  Salisbury  resigned  on  August  12,  and  on 
August  13  the  Queen  in  the  Court  Circular  accepted  his  resig- 
nation "  with  much  regret  "  ;  this  being  the  first  occasion  of 
the  public  expression  of  her  disapproval  of  Home  Rule.  [Lee, 
509.)  But  the  majority  which  supported  Gladstone  in  his 
fourth  administration  was  insufficient  for  its  purpose  ;  the 
revelation  of  Parnell's  adultery,  and  the  consequent  troubles, 
threw  back  the  rising  tide  that  had  threatened  to  carry  into 
port  any  sort  of  Home  Rule  Bill.  The  winds  had  become 
contrary,  and  so  the  second  Home  Rule  Bill,  which,  on 
September  1, 1886,  passed  its  third  reading  in  the  Commons  by 
34,  met  its  inevitable  fate  at  the  hands  of  the  Lords  in  August 
1893,  being  contemptuously  rejected  by  419  to  41.  In  March 
1894  Gladstone  went  to  Windsor,  and  resigned  his  office  as 
Prime  Minister,  the  Queen  accepting  it  "  with  a  coldness 
that  distressed  him  and  his  friends."  (ib.  511.)  He  had 
meant  to  recommend  Lord  Spencer  as  his  successor,  but  the 
Queen  did  not  ask  his  advice.  Her  choice  fell  upon  Lord 
Rosebery,  who  in  July  1895  led  the  Liberal  forces  to  that 
famous  electoral  defeat  which  restored  the  Unionist 
Government  to  power  for  the  remainder  of  the  Queen's 
reign.  With  the  Coalition  Ministry  in  power  she  had  no 
more  trouble  about  Home  Rule  for  the  rest  of  her  life. 

But,  whether  Lord  Salisbury's  or  Gladstone's  Irish  policy 
was  the  wisest,  the  whole  episode  of  the  struggle  from  1885 
to  1893  raises  the  question  whether  the  weight  of  the  Crown 
may  not  be  thrown  too  heavily  against  a  particular  Minister 
or  a  particular  policy.     There  was  no  pretence  of  the  Queen's 


Queen  Victoria  and  Mr.  Gladstone       319 

being  neutral  in  the  strife  ;  on  the  contrary,  she  threw  the 
whole  of  her  influence  into  the  scales  that  weighed  against 
the  Ministerial  policy.  Nor  was  it  only  about  Ireland  that 
antagonism  existed  between  Gladstone  and  the  Queen.  For 
the  greater  part  of  his  political  career  he  was  brought  up 
against  the  opposition  of  the  Queen,  against  the  opposition 
of  always  the  same  personality.  Had  Gladstone  been  a 
statesman  of  the  United  States,  he  might  always  have  hoped 
that  a  change  in  the  Executive  might  have  given  freer  scope 
to  his  views,  a  more  open  field  to  his  policy.  The  tremendous 
influence,  political  and  social,  exercised  by  the  Queen,  how- 
ever wise  or  beneficial  it  may  conceivably  have  been,  indicates 
the  serious  weight  such  influence  imposes  on  any  statesman 
or  policy  which  fails  of  Royal  approval.  The  problem  is  a 
constitutional  one,  not  a  personal  one  as  between  Gladstone 
and  Queen  Victoria.  "  Given  the  conditions,"  Gladstone 
wrote  about  his  miserable  last  interview  with  the  Queen, 
nothing  better  could  have  been  expected  than  their  cold 
parting ;  the  question  is  whether  those  conditions  are  the 
best  or  only  ones  that  are  possible. 


CHAPTER    X 

The  Queen  lives  to  see  Imperialism  Triumphant 

With  Home  Rule  for  Ireland  definitely  removed  for  the  time 
from  the  path  of  practical  politics  by  the  return  of  the 
Unionist  Government  to  power  in  1895  the  constitutional 
interest  of  the  Queen's  reign  came  to  an  end.  During  the 
six  remaining  years  of  her  life  there  was  no  more  appreciable 
conflict  between  herself  and  her  Ministers.  There  was  no 
longer  a  Gladstone  to  trouble  the  waters. 

Such  trouble  as  there  was  came  from  outside,  and  of  that 
there  was  more  than  enough.  Hardly  was  Lord  Salisbury 
in  power  than  in  December  1895  President  Cleveland's 
message  about  the  disputed  boundary  between  Great  Britain 
and  Venezuela  only  just  failed  of  provoking  a  war  ;  whilst 
no  sooner  was  this  cloud  dispersed  by  a  timely  consent 
to  arbitration  than  the  Jameson  raid  at  Christmas  into  the 
Transvaal,  followed  by  the  German  Emperor's  telegram, 
and  the  dispatch  of  British  ships  to  prevent  a  German  landing 
in  Delagoa  Bay,  threatened  a  rupture  between  Germany  and 
ourselves,  which  a  letter  from  the  Queen  to  her  grandson 
probably  did  much  to  avert.     (Annual  Register  for  1896,  3.) 

To  maintain  good  relations  with  Germany  remained  her 
constant  care  under  increasing  difficulties.  For  the  famous 
telegram  only  put  the  crown  on  an  antagonism  that  the  events 
of  the  previous  ten  years  had  rapidly  ripened.  The  scramble 
for  Africa  that  began  in  1884  had  been  regulated  by  the 
Berlin  Congress  of  1885,  which  had  partitioned  that  country 
into  spheres  of  influence,  with  the  direct  consequence  in  Eng- 
land of  that  great  outburst  of  Imperialist  sentiment  to  which 
the  first  Jubilee  of  1887  gave  such  strong  expression.  In  1888 
fuel  had  been  added  to  the  flame  by  Bismarck's  dislike  to 
the  German  Crown  Princess,  and  his  opposition  to  the 
marriage  of  her  daughter  Princess  Victoria  of  Prussia  to  Prince 


Queen  sees  Imperialism  Triumphant      321 

Alexander  of  Battenberg ;  and  by  the  great  jealousy  of  the 
English  physician,  Sir  Morell  Mackenzie,  during  the  fatal 
illness  of  the  German  Emperor  Frederick.  The  Queen 
herself  had  gone  to  Germany  and  interviewed  Prince  Bis- 
marck on  April  25,  1888,  with  the  hope  of  establishing 
friendlier  relations  ;  but  on  the  Emperor's  death  on  June  15 
a  fresh  outburst  of  anti-British  feeling  in  the  German  Press 
indicated  the  failure  of  her  efforts.  Not  till  March  1890  did 
relations  improve,  when  Lord  Salisbury  and  the  Emperor 
William  II.  fixed  the  boundaries  of  German  East  Africa  and 
German  South-West  Africa,  and  Germany,  foregoing  her 
claims  to  Uganda  and  the  Upper  Nile,  recognised  our 
protectorate  of  Zanzibar  in  exchange  for  our  cession  of 
Heligoland. 

Then  came  the  telegram,  and  the  sky  darkened  again. 
Germany  and  Turkey  were  thrown  together,  whilst  our 
relations  with  France,  and  therefore  with  Russia,  momentarily 
improved  :  little  probably  to  the  liking  of  the  Queen,  to 
whom  those  two  Powers  had  always  been  the  special  objects 
of  suspicion  and  distrust. 

But  her  sympathy  with  the  new  policy  of  the  reconquest 
of  the  Soudan  in  1896,  with  the  recovery  of  Dongola  openly 
avowed  as  but  the  preface  to  the  recovery  of  Khartoum,  may 
be  assumed  from  her  reluctant  assent  to  our  previous  with- 
drawal. It  was  the  hey-day  of  Imperialism,  when  a  forward 
policy  had  nothing  to  fear  from  Liberal  opposition.  But  the 
jealousy  excited  by  the  new  Nile  expedition  undoubtedly 
weakened  Lord  Salisbury's  hands  when  the  Armenian 
massacres  in  September  1895  and  again  in  August  1896 
called  for  the  joint  intervention  of  the  Powers.  Russia  had 
declared  in  1895  that  she  would  oppose  any  action  against 
Turkey  by  a  single  Power,  and  it  needed  little  to  turn  the 
Concert  of  Europe  into  a  general  war,  and  such  a  war,  as 
Lord  Rosebery  said,  and,  as  has  in  1915  been  so  appallingly 
verified,  would  have  proved  a  scene  of  universal  carnage 
and  ruin,  preceded  or  accompanied  by  the  extermination  of 
the  Armenians  that  remained.     (Annual  Register,  1896,  188.) 

That  the  Concert  of  Europe,  so  well  called  by  Lord 
Salisbury  "  the  inchoate  federation  of  Europe,"  which  with 
occasional  separation  from  it  he  did  so  much  to  keep  alive, 

21 


322  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

would  have  prevented  the  massacres  of  1896,  when  thousands 
of  Armenians  were  massacred  in  Constantinople  alone,  cannot 
be  proved.  But  the  frown  of  Russia  rendered  it  impotent 
to  do  so,  and  the  frown  was  due  to  the  Soudan  expedition. 
Her  Press  complained  especially  of  the  summoning  of  our 
Indian  troops  to  Egypt,  and  declared  our  indefinite  occupa- 
tion of  Egypt  a  threat  to  Russian  interests.  We  were 
charged  with  having  encouraged  the  Armenian  revolu- 
tionaries, with  a  view  to  our  making  a  railway  from  Port 
Said  to  the  Persian  Gulf,  and  the  paralysing  of  our  Persian 
plans  was  declared  to  be  a  foremost  Russian  object.  (Annual 
Register,  1896,  292.)  Thus  the  Concert  was  weakened,  and 
Lord  Salisbury's  course  was  a  difficult  one  to  steer. 

In  the  Cretan  troubles,  which  began  in  1896  and  continued 
after  the  consequent  war  between  Greece  and  Turkey  from 
April  11  to  September  18, 1897,  the  Concert  worked  with  better 
effect ;  for  it  at  least  localised  hostilities,  prevented  their 
spreading  to  the  Balkan  States,  saved  Thessaly  from  being 
reannexed  to  Turkey  after  the  war,  and  averted  the  imminent 
danger  of  that  great  universal  war  which  the  absence  of  such 
Concert  made  possible  or  inevitable  in  1914.  The  Concert 
must  be  judged  not  so  much  by  the  good  it  did  as  by  the 
evil  it  prevented  :  a  negative  merit  which  fell  little  short 
of  a  positive  one.  That  it  involved  some  adherence  to  the 
discredited  principle  of  the  integrity  of  the  Ottoman  Empire, 
so  favoured  of  Lord  Beaconsfield,  did  not  commit  Lord 
Salisbury  to  the  maintenance  of  Turkish  rule  at  the  expense 
of  subject  and  weaker  races  ;  and  that  the  Queen  sym- 
pathised with  this  policy  rather  than  with  the  alternative 
policy  of  our  acting  independently  of  the  Concert  or  even  in 
opposition  to  it,  to  the  great  risk  of  war,  is  not  open  to  doubt. 

But  it  was  a  time  when  the  British  Empire  was  far  from 
being  a  beloved  member  of  the  family  of  nations.  Speaking  on 
November  1,  1897,  to  the  Manchester  Chamber  of  Commerce, 
Lord  Rosebery  referred  to  "  the  envy  and  suspicion  with 
which  we  were  regarded  abroad  "  as  one  of  the  most  salient 
facts  of  our  policy  ;  and  at  the  beginning  of  1898  an  English 
writer  described  us  as  "  the  best  hated  country  in  the  world," 
against  whom  a  general  crusade  might  even  unite  the  Powers 
of  Europe.     (Annual  Register,  1898,  3.)     The  world  gave  us 


Queen  sees  Imperialism  Triumphant      323 

no  credit  for  our  altruistic  intentions,  and  our  Imperialism 
made  us  unpopular.  It  also  helped  to  weaken  and  finally 
to  terminate  the  Concert  of  Europe,  which  came  to  an  end 
when  Germany  and  Austria  withdrew  their  ships  from  the 
joint  operations  in  Cretan  waters  in  1898,  only  to  be  re- 
suscitated for  a  brief  interval  during  the  common  European 
troubles  in  China  in  1900 ;  and  it  threw  Germany  and 
Turkey  still  more  closely  together,  with  disastrous  conse- 
quences destined  to  follow  sixteen  years  later. 

With  the  year  1898  the  sky  became  still  more  overcast. 
Anxieties  thickened  round  the  Queen,  her  Ministers,  and  the 
country.  The  year  was  crowded  with  memorable  events, 
such  as  the  Dreyfus  case  in  France,  the  deaths  of  Bismarck 
and  of  Gladstone,  the  Spanish-American  War,  the  final 
liberation  of  Crete  from  Turkish  rule,  the  German  Navy 
Bill,  the  German  Emperor's  visit  to  Jerusalem,  the  victory 
over  the  Khalifa  at  Omdurman  on  September  2,  and  in  the 
midst  of  the  turmoil  the  Czar's  invitation  to  the  Powers 
to  an  international  Conference  for  an  attempt  to  pacify  our 
troubled  world. 

This  last  was  the  chief  ray  of  brightness  in  the  encircl- 
ing gloom.  For  China  had  become  an  additional  bone  of  con- 
tention between  the  rapacious  Powers,  greedy  of  fresh  markets 
and  concessions.  The  German  occupation  of  Kiau-chow  in 
Nov.  1897,  "to  the  great  advantage  of  China,  of  commerce,  and 
of  this  country,"  according  to  Mr.  Balfour  (Annual  Register, 
1898,  92),  had  been  followed  on  December  18,  1897  by  the 
entry  of  a  Russian  squadron  into  Port  Arthur,  to  the  great 
disquietude  of  no  nation  more  than  our  own.  That  Lord 
Salisbury  kept  at  peace  was  little  less  than  a  miracle.  His 
direction  to  the  admiral  of  a  British  squadron  to  quit  Port 
Arthur  at  the  wish  of  Russia,  and  our  subsequent  occupation 
of  Wei-hai-Wei  as  a  counter-move  to  the  move  of  Russia, 
met  with  much  adverse  criticism  ;  but  the  broad  fact  remains 
to  Lord  Salisbury's  credit  that  in  a  new  and  difficult  crisis 
he  maintained  peace,  when  the  policy  advocated  by  the 
majority  of  his  followers  might  easily  have  involved  us  in 
war  with  every  Power  in  Europe  but  Italy.  Nor  was  his 
course  made  easier  by  such  a  remark  as  Mr.  Chamberlain's 
at  Birmingham  on  May  13,  1898,  when  in  allusion  to  Russian 


324  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

diplomacy  he  said,  "  As  to  the  promises  which  were  given 
and  broken  a  fortnight  afterwards,  I  had  better  say,  Who 
sups  with  the  devil  must  have  a  long  spoon." 

At  the  same  time  our  differences  with  France  over 
boundaries  in  West  Africa  had  reached  a  critical  state. 
And  after  these  had  been  happily  settled  by  the  convention 
signed  at  Paris  on  June  15,  1898,  the  Fashoda  incident  in 
September  again  brought  war  within  visible  distance.  The 
moderation  shown  on  both  sides,  and  the  advice  of  Count 
Muravieff,  the  Russian  Minister,  to  France  to  accept  a 
pacific  solution  {Annual  Register,  1898,  280),  averted  the 
worst  catastrophe,  but  much  irritation  survived.  Nor  was 
it  soothed  by  Mr.  Chamberlain's  complaint  on  December  8 
of  the  difficulty  of  maintaining  friendship  with  a  country 
which  was  constantly  pulling  the  lion's  tail,  or  by  our 
ambassador's  references  to  the  French  policy  of  "  pin- 
pricks," which  led  to  some  demands  for  his  recall.  In  these 
circumstances  an  Anglo-German  alliance  seemed  to  many, 
and  notably  to  Mr.  Chamberlain,  the  most  hopeful  direction 
for  our  policy  to  take,  and  one  may  be  sure  that  for  this 
the  Queen  forgave  him  much  that  offended  her  in  the  New 
Diplomacy.  For  this  can  have  appealed  to  her  as  little  as 
the   New  Woman,  who  was  in   fashion  at  the  same  time. 

It  was  in  response  to  this  leaning  towards  Germany,  and 
probably  under  the  influence  of  the  Queen,  that  the  German 
Emperor  seized  the  opportunity  of  endeavouring  to  improve 
relations  between  his  country  and  ours.  His  telegraphing 
to  the  British  Agency  in  Egypt  his  congratulations  after 
Omdurman  on  this  avenging  of  "  poor  Gordon's  death," 
and  his  calling  for  three  cheers  for  the  Queen  from  the 
troops  he  addressed  at  Hanover  on  September  4,  gratified 
public  opinion  ;  whilst  it  is  notorious  that  when  Fashoda 
brought  war  with  France  within  the  horizon  of  possibilities, 
"  the  sympathetic  attitude  of  the  German  Government  " 
contributed  not  a  little  to  the  easing  of  the  situation. 
(Elliot's  Goschen,  ii.  219.) 

But  the  fates  were  set  on  turning  all  that  happened  to 
future  war.  Much  turned  on  that  other  convention  with 
France  which  was  signed  on  March  21,  1899,  and  defined 
our  respective  frontiers  in  Central  Africa.    For  this  apportion- 


Queen  sees  Imperialism  Triumphant      325 

ment  of  enormous  tracts  of  territory,  regardless  either  of 
the  wish  of  the  natives  or  of  the  suzerainty  of  the  Sultan, 
raised  the  suspicion  in  Constantinople  that  both  countries 
aimed  at  nothing  less  than  the  destruction  of  Mohammedan 
rule,  and  so  drew  still  closer  the  ties  between  Germany  and 
Turkey.  It  was  accordingly  on  November  27, 1899,  that  the 
Sultan  granted  to  the  Deutsche  Bank  Syndicate  a  concession 
for  the  extension  of  the  Anatolian  railway,  which  was  to 
pass  by  Bagdad  along  the  valleys  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates 
to  Basra  on  the  Persian  Gulf,  and  so  bring  all  that  district 
under  German  influence  and  enterprise.  (Annual  Register, 
1899,  73,  74,  292.)  Thus  in  the  sequence  of  confused  aims 
and  issues  which  makes  up  human  history  does  it  as  often 
happen  as  the  converse,  that  events  which  seem  propitious 
in  one  direction  often  prove  unpropitious  in  another. 

Then  out  of  this  seething  cauldron  of  international  dis- 
trust, suspicion,  and  trade  competition  emerged  in  October 
1899  the  British-Boer  War.  Its  seeds  had  been  sown  by 
the  Jameson  raid  at  the  close  of  1895.  In  the  Budget  debate 
of  April  28,  1897,  Sir  William  Harcourt  had  declared,  in 
reference  to  the  vote  of  £200,000  for  the  South  African 
garrison,  that  Mr.  Chamberlain,  the  Colonial  Secretary,  had 
"  in  every  utterance  of  his  during  the  last  few  months  been 
endeavouring  to  exasperate  sentiment  in  South  Africa,  and 
to  produce  what,  thank  God,  he  had  failed  in  producing,  a 
racial  war."  Nor,  considering  the  menace  of  the  raid  and 
the  agitation  that  preceded  the  raid,  was  the  answer  con- 
vincing, that  the  Boers  had  spent  millions  on  armaments 
to  an  extent  unjustified  by  any  ordinary  defensive  policy. 
What  part  or  side  the  Queen  took  in  the  face  of  this  quickly 
ripening  trouble,  and  what  she  felt  about  the  action  of  Mr. 
Rhodes  or  the  Chartered  Company,  still  awaits  disclosure. 

It  was  indeed  a  bad  omen  for  the  Peace  Conference  which 
was  opened  at  The  Hague  on  May  16,  1899,  that  on  the  last 
day  of  the  same  month  the  fruitless  meeting  took  place  at 
Blomfontein  between  President  Kruger  and  our  High  Com- 
missioner, Sir  Alfred  Milner.  Materials  not  yet  published 
will  some  day  throw  light  on  the  Queen's  attitude  to  the 
tragic  war  that  followed.  Did  she  agree  with  Lord  Kimberley 
in  his  condemnation  of  the  New  Diplomacy,  which  preferred 


326  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

negotiations  in  full  view  of  an  excitable  public  to  negotia- 
tions carried  on  quietly  between  the  principals  in  the  dispute? 
Trained  as  she  had  been  through  a  long  life  to  believe  in 
tact  and  courtesy  in  dealing  with  nations  as  with  individuals, 
she  can  hardly  have  read  with  pleasure  Mr.  Chamberlain's 
speech  of  June  26,  1899,  when  he  spoke  of  "  the  misgovern- 
ment  of  the  Transvaal  as  a  festering  sore  which  poisoned 
the  whole  atmosphere  of  South  Africa,"  or  his  speech  of 
August  26,  when,  in  a  still  more  critical  state  of  things,  he 
complained  of  President  Kruger  "  dribbling  out  reforms  like 
water  from  a  squeezed  sponge,"  though  a  few  days  later 
he  accepted  by  a  dispatch  the  very  reforms  the  President 
conceded. 

Equally  interesting  it  will  be  to  learn  what  she  thought 
of  the  suzerainty  question  as  a  pretext  for  the  demands 
which  led  to  the  war.  Did  she,  with  Sir  Henry  Campbell- 
Bannerman,  regard  the  raising  of  the  suzerainty  question 
as  "  unnecessary  and  inept  "  ;  or  hold  Sir  Edward  Clarke's 
view  that  for  a  British  Minister  to  assert,  after  the  Con- 
vention of  1884,  that  we  retained  a  suzerainty  over  the 
Transvaal  was  "  a  breach  of  national  faith  "  ?  (Annual 
Register,  1899,  212.)  Did  she  deem  it  consistent  with  our 
stipulated  non-interference  with  the  internal  affairs  of  the 
Transvaal  Republic  to  demand  a  far-reaching  change  in  its 
electoral  law  ? 

Or  did  she  exert  influence  to  prevent  the  war  ?  She  was 
then  in  her  eightieth  year,  and  lacked  the  vigour  she  had 
shown  in  1864,  when  she  had  been  prepared  to  exercise  her 
full  prerogative  to  prevent  an  Anglo-German  War  in  defence 
of  Denmark.  And  Lord  Beaconsfield's  lessons  of  Imperialism 
had  left  on  her  so  indelible  an  impression  that  in  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's phrase  "  her  mind  and  opinions  had  been  seriously 
warped." 

But  in  any  case  she  continued  wisely  to  strive  for  a  good 
understanding  with  Germany.  Feeling  doubtless  that,  unless 
the  intermarriages  of  Royalties  contribute  something  to  the 
world's  peace,  Royalty  has  a  claim  the  less  on  the  world's 
regard,  she  encouraged  frequent  visits  from  her  grandson 
on  the  throne  of  Germany.  In  November  1899,  when  the 
German  Press  indulged,  like  that  of  other  neutral  countries, 


Queen  sees  Imperialism  Triumphant      327 

in  offensive  caricatures  of  the  Queen  and  in  articles  hostile  to 
this  country,  the  Emperor's  visit  to  the  Queen  was  some 
mitigation  of  the  strained  relations.  It  counted  for  some- 
thing that,  accompanied  by  his  Foreign  Minister,  Count 
Bulow,  he  conferred  with  Mr.  Chamberlain  and  Mr.  Balfour, 
and  contributed  £300  to  the  widows  and  orphans  of  the  Scots 
Greys,  as  colonel-in-chief  of  a  regiment.  It  was  mainly  due  to 
the  influence  of  the  Queen  that  he  refused  all  countenance 
to  a  coalition  against  us,  notoriously  advocated  in  other 
quarters,  during  our  early  reverses  in  the  war  ;  so  that  the 
credit  belongs  to  the  Queen,  if  not  of  preventing  the  Boer  War, 
of  having  prevented  it  from  becoming  a  European  War  as  well. 

But  in  the  case  of  France  no  such  mitigation  of  bad  feel- 
ing was  possible.  The  verdict  of  guilty  "  with  extenuating 
circumstances  "  against  Dreyfus  on  September  9,  led  to 
proposals  in  our  Press  to  stop  all  commercial  intercourse  with 
France  and  to  boycott  her  forthcoming  Exhibition.  So  the 
beginning  of  the  Boer  War  led  to  very  virulent  writing  and 
caricaturing  in  the  French  Press  ;  in  response  to  which  Mr. 
Chamberlain  on  November  30  at  Leicester  warned  the  French 
"  to  mend  their  manners,"  and  openly  advocated  an  alliance 
between  ourselves,  Germany,  and  the  United  States  :  a  most 
unfortunate  sample  of  the  New  Diplomacy,  inasmuch  as  its 
only  effect  was  to  give  equal  offence  in  Paris,  in  Berlin,  and 
in  Washington. 

As  the  Queen  only  lived  for  a  few  weeks  into  the  new 
century,  it  may  be  said  that  she  and  the  nineteenth  century 
expired  together.  But  her  reign  went  out  in  cloud  and 
sorrow.  The  Boer  War  was  still  unfinished,  and  it  had 
estranged  us  from  every  other  nation.  For  the  Continental 
Press,  irrespective  of  party,  espoused  the  cause  of  our  enemies, 
and  Professor  Mommsen  declared  that  outside  England  not 
a  single  voice  defended  the  war.  When  President  Kruger 
visited  France  in  the  last  days  of  November  1900,  he  met 
with  an  almost  regal  reception,  and  the  only  sign  of  friendship 
towards  us  was  shown  by  the  Emperor  William,  who  made 
an  excuse  for  not  receiving  him  at  Berlin.  So  great  was  the 
bitterness  against  us  that  Lord  Salisbury  on  May  9,  1900, 
urged  this  as  an  argument  for  a  large  increase  of  our  Army. 
Our  foreign  policy  had  come  to  count  for  so  little  in  the  councils 


328  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

of  Europe  that  in  the  Boxer  Rising  against  Europeans  in 
China  our  proposal  that  Japan  should  be  invited  to  protect 
the  endangered  interests  of  Europeans  was  scouted  "  as  soon 
as  it  was  known  that  Great  Britain  was  favourable  to  it." 
{Annual  Register,  1900,  158.)  A  war  with  one  or  more 
Powers  in  connection  with  the  intrigues  for  the  spoliation  of 
China  loomed  ahead  as  a  quite  possible  addition  to  our  African 
troubles,  and  the  only  bright  spot  was  our  agreement  with 
Germany  of  October  16,  1900,  for  the  pursuit  of  a  common 
policy  in  the  Far  East.  And  considering  that  another 
massacre  of  Armenians  was  the  chief  incident  of  Turkish 
history  in  1900,  the  sending  of  Sir  John  Fisher  to  offer  the 
Queen's  congratulations  to  Abdul  Hamid  on  the  celebration 
in  September  of  the  jubilee  in  honour  of  the  twenty-fifth 
anniversary  of  his  reign  was  an  incident  rather  to  be  for- 
gotten than  remembered. 

So  the  great  Queen's  reign  went  out  in  war  and  the  shadow 
of  war.  The  Imperialism  which  had  been  gathering  force 
ever  since  the  fall  of  Gladstone  was  bearing  fruit  not  un- 
tainted with  bitterness.  But  the  Queen  never  swerved  nor 
faltered.  Sir  Horace  Rumbold,  visiting  her  at  Windsor  in 
the  last  month  of  her  life,  found  in  her  no  sign  of  that  wish 
for  peace  at  any  price  which  some  attributed  to  her  ;  on  the 
contrary  he  found  her  "  very  keen,  very  angry,  and  very 
determined,"  and  deeply  resentful  of  President  Kruger's 
challenge.  (Further  Recollections,  355.)  Her  death  did  much 
to  allay  the  sore  feelings  which  the  war  had  engendered. 
For  a  moment  the  Concert  of  Europe  was  reunited  at  her 
funeral.  The  Emperor  William  cancelled  German  festivities 
then  about  to  celebrate  the  200th  anniversary  of  the  founding 
of  the  Prussian  monarchy,  whilst  other  nations  paid  their 
sincere  homage  of  respect  to  the  most  venerated  of  con- 
temporary Sovereigns.  The  pupil  of  Stockmar,  very  much 
by  following  the  lines  he  had  impressed  upon  her  in  youth, 
had  raised  the  monarchy  to  a  height  few  would  have  thought 
attainable  when  she  ascended  the  throne.  She  had  gained 
ground  for  the  Executive  at  the  expense  of  Parliament.  By 
her  unfailing  devotion  to  the  duties  of  a  position  she  had 
once  felt  so  irksome  she  had  during  the  longest  reign  in  the 
record  of  our  annals  done  more  to  establish  the  claims  of 


Queen  sees  Imperialism  Triumphant      329 

monarchy  on  a  basis  of  popular  affection  and  personal  respect 
than  any  other  Sovereign  in  our  history.  And  the  chief 
regret  in  a  retrospect  of  her  reign  must  be  that  she  did  not 
pass  away  with  her  country  at  peace  or  In  the  enjoyment 
of  the  goodwill  of  all  other  nations. 


CONCLUSIONS 

No  period  of  our  history  is  marked  by  a  more  marvellous 
extension  of  the  British  dominions  and  of  national  prosperity 
than  that  we  have  traversed  from  1760  to  1901  ;  yet  the  same 
period  lends  no  support  to  the  common  idea  that  our  Constitu- 
tional system  has  worked  with  invariable  smoothness.  For 
friction  has  been  shown  to  have  been  its  constant  feature.  It 
is  very  possible  that  no  other  system  would  have  worked  with 
less,  and  that  any  other  might  have  worked  with  more ;  but 
the  admission  should  not  cover  the  weak  points  which  the 
experience  of  four  reigns  has  detected  in  our  constitutional 
armour,  and  from  which  it  were  better  to  relieve  it. 

The  period  reviewed  shows  a  striking  loosening  of  that 
tendency  to  an  almost  abject  loyalty  which  was  so  absurdly 
displayed  in  the  days  of  Lord  Chatham,  and  by  no  one  more 
notably  than  by  him.  Modern  statesmen  no  longer  conclude 
their  letters  to  the  Sovereign  by  flinging  themselves  at  the  feet 
of  Majesty ;  the  Closet  is  no  longer  spoken  of  with  bated  breath  ; 
and  Ministers,  though  still  the  servants  of  the  Crown,  regard 
themselves  more  justly  as  the  servants  of  the  Nation. 

But  the  course  of  events,  whilst  reducing  the  appearance  of 
monarchical  power,  has  tended  to  its  increase  in  reality.  For, 
although  the  actual  Veto  has  passed  into  disuse,  the  Veto 
precedent  has  become  a  more  serious  barrier  against  any  legis- 
lation distasteful  to  the  Crown.  Mr.  Lecky's  statement  that 
English  sovereignty  is  "  so  restricted  in  its  province  that  it 
has,  or  ought  to  have,  no  real  influence  on  legislation  "  (iii. 
160),  is  hardly  borne  out  by  the  influence  exercised  over  legis- 
lation by  George  III.,  George  IV.,  William  IV.,  and  Queen 
Victoria.  For  without  any  formal  prohibition  the  whole 
weight  of  the  social  influence  of  the  Crown  may  so  easily 
be  thrown  into  the  scale  against  any  particular  measure  as  to 
make  both  its  introduction  difficult  and  its  passing  impossible. 
The  history  of  Home  Rule  in  1886  and  1895  may  serve  as  an 


Conclusions  33 1 

illustration  of  this.  Where  every  speech  of  leading  states- 
men is  closely  scanned,  and  approved  or  condemned,  as  has 
naturally  always  happened,  a  tremendous  pressure  is  brought 
to  bear  on  political  independence,  and  the  statesman  who 
can  persevere  against  the  known  and  felt  opposition  of  the 
Sovereign  must  be  inspired  by  an  indifference  to  difficulties 
which  is  rare  in  human  nature. 

What  the  experience  of  the  period  clearly  proves  is  the  de- 
pendence of  our  system  for  good  results  on  the  character  and 
intelligence  of  the  Sovereign,  and  the  impossibility  of  regula- 
ting these  is  the  worst  defect  in  a  Constitution  which  seemed 
to  George  III.  so  absolutely  perfect.  Under  no  republican 
system,  with  frequently  changing  Presidents,  would  it  have 
been  possible  for  Catholic  Emancipation  to  have  been  deferred 
from  1801  to  1829  :  a  delay  mainly  attributable  to  the 
immense  power  of  obstruction  conferred  by  our  Constitution 
on  monarchs  like  George  III.  and  his  son.  The  whole  of 
the  nineteenth-century  history  of  Ireland  would  probably 
have  been  better  and  happier  but  for  the  fatal  subjection 
of  the  policy  of  the  country  to  two  minds,  of  which  one  was 
often  worse  than  weak  and  the  other  never  pre-eminently 
strong.  The  price  we  paid  was  a  dear  one ;  for  the  whole  dismal 
record  of  agrarian  crimes,  Coercion  Acts,  evictions,  Land 
Reform  agitation,  and  finally  the  Home  Rule  agitation,  might 
never  have  stained  the  page  of  history,  had  the  Legislative 
Union  been  accompanied,  or  speedily  followed,  as  Pitt  wished, 
by  such  a  concession  to  Irish  feeling  as  the  non-exclusion  of 
Catholic  representatives  from  the  United  Legislature. 

Again,  the  prolongation  of  the  American  War  and  of  the 
war  with  Republican  France  was  mainly  due  to  the  personal 
character  of  George  III.,  who,  though  pacific  in  theory,  fell 
a  ready  victim  in  practice  to  the  common  arguments  by 
which  the  militarists  of  all  ages  have  succeeded  in  thwarting 
the  restoration  of  peace.  Such  arguments  as  that  the  enemy 
cannot  be  trusted  to  keep  a  treaty  of  peace,  or  that  no 
peace  can  be  conclusive  till  the  enemy  has  been  forced  to 
change  his  moral  principles,  were  barriers  against  which  the 
wisdom  of  Pitt  beat  in  vain  ;  the  King  in  this  matter  not 
simply  reflecting  public  opinion,  but  setting  the  fashion 
to  it. 


332  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Especially  in  the  department  of  foreign  affairs  did  the 
influence  of  Queen  Victoria  tend  to  enhance  the  power  of 
the  Crown  ;  for  the  Queen,  though  paying  a  ready  deference 
to  her  Ministers  in  domestic  legislation,  claimed  and  exercised 
her  right  to  more  than  a  concurrent  control  where  Imperial 
matters  were  concerned.  The  idea  was  yet  to  emerge  of  any 
democratic  control  of  foreign  policy,  or  of  the  people  having 
any  right  to  a  voice  in  matters  of  policy  which  touched 
their  interests  far  more  closely  than  any  others  ;  though 
the  doctrine  that  diplomatic  negotiations  should  not  be 
secret  was  frequently  propounded  at  public  meetings 
addressed  by  Cobden  and  Kossuth.  (Walpole's  Russell,  ii. 
136.)  Foreign  affairs  were  for  the  Crown  to  settle  in  concert 
with  one  Minister  or  a  few  ;  they  were  too  high  for  Parlia- 
ment or  the  country  at  large.  During  the  latter  part  of 
Lord  Beaconsfield's  Ministry,  when  war  was  so  often  either 
actual  or  imminent,  the  doctrine  became  fashionable,  that, 
owing  to  the  ignorance  of  the  general  public  about  foreign 
mysteries,  foreign  policy  should  rest  as  exclusively  as  possible 
with  the  Executive  ;  and  therefore  for  the  Queen,  as  head 
and  arm  of  the  Constitution,  a  larger  share  was  claimed  in 
the  control  of  foreign  policy.  Even  Lord  Hartington  was 
moved  to  protest  against  such  a  reversion  to  ideas  of  Imperial 
autocracy  as  were  advocated  in  articles  like  that  on  "  The 
Crown  and  the  Constitution  "  in  the  Quarterly  Review  for 
April  1878.  (Holland,  i.  251.)  And  Gladstone  took  up  his 
pen  against  a  doctrine  which  encouraged  the  Crown  to  act 
independently  of  its  constitutional  advisers ;  maintaining 
that  such  a  doctrine  could  no  more  thrive  in  England  than 
the  jungles  of  Bengal  could  be  raised  on  Salisbury  Plain. 

But  doctrines  have  a  vigorous  vitality,  and  the  high 
monarchical  pretensions  which  were  so  luxuriant  in  the 
reign  of  Queen  Anne  by  no  means  died  with  her.  In  a  limited 
Constitutional  Monarchy  they  lie  never  far  below  the  surface, 
and  need  but  favourable  conditions  for  their  revival.  Was 
it  not  so  lately  as  1911,  the  first  year  of  the  reign  of  King 
George  V.,  that  an  address  to  him  was  signed  by  many  peers 
and  others,  urging  him  to  thwart  the  policy  of  the  Ministry 
by  vetoing  the  Parliament  Bill  ?  A  monarch  who  chose  to 
exercise  his  full  prerogative  of  making  peace  or  war,  or  of 


Conclusions  333 

dismissing  his  Ministers,  would  probably  find  that  his  powers 
were  much  less  restricted  than  the  text-books  define  them. 
In  the  future  that  stretches  to  eternity  before  us  every 
variety  of  political  contingency  is  possible,  even  to  the  actual 
abdication  of  a  monarch,  averse  perhaps  from  such  a  life  of 
thraldom  as  George  III.  or  Queen  Victoria  bore  so  heroically  ; 
but  so  long  as  it  seems  better  not  to  venture  on  new  paths 
of  change,  such  provision  as  is  possible  would  seem  to  be 
desirable  to  enable  us  to  face,  without  danger  to  freedom, 
such  changes  as  the  temper  of  the  times  or  of  the  monarch 
may  have  in  store  for  us. 

It  was  once  suggested  by  Horace  Walpole  that  at  the 
beginning  of  every  reign  a  concordat  should  be  made  with 
the  new  Sovereign,  by  which,  for  the  better  avoidance  of 
subsequent  friction,  he  should  be  shorn  of  some  portion  of 
the  Royal  prerogative  (Last  Journals,  ii.  419)  ;  nor  is  it  easy 
to  think  of  a  more  orderly  plan  for  gradually  modifying 
the  exercise  of  the  prerogative  on  points  where  accumulated 
experience  suggests  such  modification  as  desirable.  With 
such  a  custom,  for  instance,  all  the  trouble  that  occurred 
under  Queen  Victoria  regarding  the  rival  claims  of  the 
Crown  and  of  Parliament  over  the  Army  might  have  been 
avoided.  And  in  the  same  way  such  incidents  as  George  III.'s 
dismissal  of  the  Coalition  Ministers  in  1783  or  William  FV.'s 
of  the  Whig  Ministry  in  1834  might  have  been  provided 
against  by  some  stipulation  of  Parliamentary  consent. 

That  an  hereditary  monarchy  has  advantages  over  an 
elective  one  is  among  the  few  things  that  historical  experience 
can  confidently  claim  to  have  proved.  Lord  Beaconsfield's 
dictum  that  our  ancestors  had  done  wisely  in  placing  the 
prize  of  supreme  power  outside  the  sphere  of  human  passions 
and  ambitions  (Speeches,  ii.  492)  hardly  admits  of  serious 
challenge.  But  hereditary  monarchy  suffers  from  the 
drawback  of  placing  that  prize  too  much  within  the  sphere  of 
pure  and  uncontrollable  chance  ;  and  the  same  system  which 
made  a  Queen  Victoria  possible  is  also  responsible  for  a 
George  IV.  Experience,  therefore,  though  it  has  proved 
the  superiority  of  an  hereditary  to  an  elective  monarchy, 
cannot  yet  assert  the  superiority  of  an  hereditary  monarchy 
to  a  republican  form  of  government. 


334  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

Neither  form  of  government  is  free  from  its  special 
defects  ;  and  the  Horatian  maxim  that  Nihil  est  ab  omni 
parte  beatum  applies  before  all  things  to  political  systems. 
And  hence  the  claim  may  be  the  wiser  one  that  it  is  better  to 
try  to  clear  existing  Governments  of  admitted  imperfections 
than  to  face  the  risks  of  a  total  change  of  form.  The  im- 
perfections of  our  own  political  system  are  perhaps  only 
more  obvious  than  those  of  our  neighbours.  They  are, 
chiefly,  the  danger  of  flagrant  political  difference  on  foreign 
or  domestic  affairs  between  the  Crown  and  the  country  ;  the 
great  power  still  claimed  and  exercised  by  the  Crown  over 
foreign  policy  ;  its  power  to  check  or  prevent  legislation  it 
dislikes  ;  the  difficult  relationship  between  the  Crown  and 
its  Ministers,  due  often  to  personal  antipathy  ;  and  the 
danger  of  the  Crown's  being  drawn  from  a  position  of 
neutrality  to  one  of  keen  partisanship.  And  these  difficulties 
seem  to  be  too  dependent  on  the  chance  of  individual  char- 
acter to  admit  of  easy  remedy. 

But  against  such  defects  must  be  set  certain  broad  facts 
which  may  be  fairly  quoted  on  the  credit  side  of  our  system 
to  the  present  time.  Under  it  many  a  political  crisis  has 
been  safely  weathered,  and,  though  rather  narrowly  missed 
in  the  reigns  of  George  IV.  and  William  IV.,  actual  revolution 
has  been  avoided.  Though  desirable  legislation  has  often 
been  thwarted  by  our  monarchs,  much  also  has  been  accom- 
plished or  even  facilitated  by  them  without  any  friction 
whatever. 

Nor  can  it  be  said  that  our  experience  establishes  any 
causal  connection  between  monarchy  and  war.  Kant's 
famous  generalisation  that  the  way  to  perpetual  international 
peace  lies  in  the  substitution  of  republics  for  monarchies, 
though  borne  out  by  the  Pan-American  League,  which  since 
1889  has  bound  the  twenty-one  republics  of  the  American 
Continent  in  a  confederacy  of  peace,  is  hardly  supported 
by  our  later  history.  It  was  Queen  Victoria,  for  instance, 
who  mainly  kept  us  at  peace  with  Germany  in  1864,  when 
the  people  would  have  jumped  at  war.  A  democracy  under 
modern  conditions,  sensitive  to  every  gust  of  rumour,  and  to 
every  whiff  of  passion  that  is  fanned  by  the  Press,  is  subject 
to  no  restraint  from  war  like  that  which  may  operate  on  a 


Conclusions  335 

pacific  monarch.  Lord  Salisbury  once  wrote  of  "  a  thirst 
for  empire  and  a  readiness  for  aggressive  war "  as  a 
characteristic  of  democracy,  whether  in  ancient  or  modern 
times  (Essays,  ii.  92) ;  and  though  the  limited  nature  of 
ancient  democracies  puts  them  out  of  comparison  with  the 
word  democracy  as  now  understood,  the  negation  of  the 
charge  has  yet  to  establish  itself.  "  Free  institutions," 
he  wrote,  "are  counted  as  dust  beneath  their  feet  by  a 
democracy  that  is  bent  on  conquest  "  (ib.  ii.  92),  and  he 
predicated  a  "  lawless  lust  of  territory  "  as  the  one  great 
point  on  which  both  despotisms  and  democracies  agreed. 
(ib.  ii.  104.)  And  who  can  with  certainty  predict  the 
contrary  of  the  future  ? 

If  Lord  Salisbury's  view  be  right,  whatever  other  merits 
a  democracy  may  have,  it  is  not  to  the  spread  of  popular 
forms  of  government  over  the  earth  that  the  pacifist  can  look 
with  confidence  for  the  realisation  of  his  dreams  of  a  world 
from  which  the  curse  of  war  has  been  eliminated.  On  this 
point  the  rival  claims  of  the  rival  systems  of  government 
must  remain  open  questions  ;  the  commercial  incentive  to 
war  may  operate  as  strongly  on  the  American  or  the  Russian 
republics  as  it  ever  did  on  monarchical  countries ;  and 
centuries  more  of  experiments  in  Government  must  be 
added  to  the  world's  experience  before  a  decisive  judgment 
can  be  formed.  But  if  it  be  the  destiny  of  the  world 
to  become  more  addicted  to  war  as  it  becomes 
more  democratic,  no  republican  transformation  can  be 
looked  to  as  making  for  the  increase  of  freedom,  and 
military  democracies  can  hardly  escape  an  ultimate  meta- 
morphosis into  military  despotisms,  with  as  crushing  a  control 
of  individual  liberty  as  the  worst  autocracies  have  ever 
exercised.  Free  assemblies  are  not  the  best  engines  for  the 
waging  of  wars,  nor  can  Lord  Salisbury's  remark  in  the  Boer 
War  be  forgotten,  that  the  British  Constitution  as  hitherto 
known  makes  no  good  fighting  machine.  It  may  be  said 
of  every  war,  what  the  Prince  Consort  said  of  the  Crimean 
War,  that  it  places  Parliamentary  Government  on  its  trial. 
And,  if  an  era  of  greater  and  longer  wars  than  we  have 
known  in  the  past  lies  before  us,  it  may  well  be  that  the 
maintenance  of  free  institutions  will  prove  even  more  difficult 


336  The  Monarchy  in  Politics 

than  their  creation.  It  may  therefore  be  in  other  directions 
than  in  changed  forms  of  Government  that  we  should  look 
with  the  best  hope  for  placing  the  peace  of  our  war-ridden 
world  on  some  basis  less  precarious  than  it  has  rested  on  in 
the  past.  As,  for  instance,  in  changed  forms  of  thought 
about  traditional  political  conceptions  ;  in  broader  ideas  of 
Nationality  and  Commerce,  and  of  the  common  interests 
of  all  countries  in  each  other's  prosperity.  Above  all, 
probably  in  a  revulsion  of  feeling  against  Imperialism,  which 
is  merely  a  modern  word  for  a  very  ancient  thing  :  for  that 
lust  for  the  satisfaction  of  territorial  and  commercial  cupidity 
which  is  as  old  as  humanity  itself.  The  Russian  people, 
regarding  Monarchy  and  Imperialism  as  so  closely  intertwined 
as  to  be  inseparable,  and  regarding  Imperialism  as  the  source 
of  all  militarist  tyranny  and  of  the  intolerable  sufferings  of 
war,  cut  themselves  free  of  both  by  the  same  stroke.  The 
experiment  will  show  whether  the  connection  between  the 
two  is  real  or  fanciful.  Should  the  Russian  forecast  prove 
correct,  a  lesson  of  incalculable  value  will  have  been  given  to 
the  world,  and  Russia  will  have  given  it  a  light  on  the  path 
towards  the  attainment  of  that  lasting  peace  to  which  hitherto 
so  faint  a  ray  of  hope  has  directed  the  longings  of  mankind. 
But  this  belongs  to  the  province  of  the  prophets,  and  to 
the  distant  side  of  time. 


INDEX 


Aberdeen,  Lord  :   averts  war  with 

France  in  1844,  196. 
the  Queen's  great  regard  for,  209, 

210. 
opposed  to  Prince  Albert's  Prussian 

policy,  223. 
at    head    of   a   Coalition    Govern- 
ment, 228. 
made   by  the   Queen  to  apologise 

for  a  speech  in  the  Lords,  233. 
the    Prince's    "  fierv    letter "     to, 

238. 
Addington    (Lord    Sidmouth)  :      his 

Ministry  in  1801,  74. 
resignation  in  April  1804,  75. 
George  IV.'s  great  dislike  of,  94. 
Albert,  Prince:    travels  with  Stock- 
mar,  166. 
becomes  private  secretary  to  the 

Queen,  168. 
belief    in    his    committal    to    the 

Tower,  174. 
increased    influence    after    fall    of 

Melbourne,  182. 
his  friendship  with  the  Prince  of 

Prussia,  202. 
his  despair  of  Germany,  203. 
his  dislike  of  Palmerston's  foreign 

policy,  208,  291. 
Greville's  praise  of,  212. 
his  contempt  for  Palmerston,  219, 

248. 
urged  by  Duke  of  Wellington  to  be 

Commander-in-Chief,  287. 
Whig  opposition  to,  109. 
American  War  :  its  effect  on  English 

politics,  36,  37. 
Anecdotes :     of     George     III.    and 

Gen.  Conway,  8. 
George   III.   and   George   Gren- 

ville,  15,  27,  30. 
George    III.    and    Lord    Bute, 


16,  17. 
George    III. 

33- 
George   III. 

Wales,  42. 
George    III. 

reagh,  71. 

22 


and    Lord    North, 
and   the  Prince  of 


and    Lord    Castle- 


Anecdotes:    of  the  Duke  of  Bedford 

in  Devonshire,  20. 
George  IV.  and  Perceval,  93,  94. 
George    IV.    and    the    Duke    of 

Wellington,  103. 
George  IV.  and  Canning,  106. 
William    IV.    and    Sir   C.    Grey, 

160. 
William  IV.  and  Lord  Brougham, 

162. 
William  IV.  and  Creevey,  163. 
Queen  Victoria  and  the  Duke  of 

Buckingham,  188. 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  and  the 

King  of  Prussia,  201. 

Beaconsfield,   Lord :    Greville's  esti- 
mate of,  188. 
his   influence   on    the    Queen,    35, 
206. 
speech  on   Constitutional   Mon- 
archy, 299. 
the    Queen's    sympathy    with    his 

Imperialist  ideas,  303. 

his  admiration  for  Prince  Albert, 

304- 

Bedford,  fourth   Duke  of:    helps   to 

end  the  Seven  Years' War,  19. 

his  unpopularity  incurred  by  doing 

so,  20. 
his   plea    for    the   golden    rule    in 
politics,  20. 
quarrel  with  Lord  Bute,  21. 
house  mobbed,  21. 
plain  speaking  to  the  King,  22. 
Bright,    John  :     the   Queen's  dislike 

of,  237. 
Bute,  Lord  :    his  rise  to  power,  10. 
succeeds    the    Duke   of   Newcastle 

in  May  1762,  88. 
his  devotion  to  the  King,  12. 
political     proscription     under,     in 

1762,  13. 
makes    peace    with     France    and 

Spain  in  1763,  13. 
retires  from  political  life,  14 ;  but 

his  influence  continues,  15. 
his  poor  opinion  of  political  life, 


338 


Index 


Bute,   Lord :    Lord   Mansfield's  wish 
for  his  return  to  power,  27. 

Camden,  Lord  :  his  fear  of  despotism 

in  England,  2>7- 
Canning,     George :     becomes    Prime 
Minister  in  1827,  103. 
quarrels  with  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton, 107. 
Whig  opposition  to,  109. 
end    of   his   life   and    ministry   in 
1827,  109. 
Cato  Street  Conspiracy,  115. 
Chatham,  Lord  (Pitt)  :   his  pessimism 
about  the  country,  6,  45. 
hatred  of  Lord  Bute,  14. 
resignation  in  October  1761,  19. 
adoration  of  Royalty,  31,  32. 
Asiatic  tendencies,  33. 
contempt  for  the  country,  45. 
voted  a  monument  at  Westminster, 

33- 
Clarendon,  Lord  :    the  Queen's  wish 
for  him  as  Foreign  Minister, 
216. 
his  connection  with  the  Times,  221. 

visit  to  Berlin  in  1861,  246. 
haunted   by   the   thought    of   the 
defencelessness    of    England, 
289. 
Cowley,     Lord :     rebuked     by     the 
Queen,  194. 
his  fanaticism  for  continuing  the 
Russian  War,  239. 

Declaratory  Act  about   America  in 

1764,  24. 
Derby,  Lord  :    his  first  Government 
in  1852,  189. 
Greville's  description  of  it,  189. 
opposed  to  peace  with  Russia  in 

1856,  242. 
his  second   Government   in    1858, 
247. 
defeat  in  1859,  251,  255. 
brisk     correspondence     with     the 

Queen,  254,  293. 
his  third  Government  in  1866,  301. 
Devonshire,    fourth    Duke    of :     his 
dismissal  by  George  III.,   11. 
Dunning     (Lord     Ashburton) :      his 
Resolution  about   the  Crown 
in  1780,  38. 
friendship  with  George  III.,  38. 

Fitzwilliam,  Lord,  resigns  Irish  Lord 

Lieutenancy, 71. 
Fox,    C.    J.  :     his    five   Resolutions 
against   the   French   war,   65. 
vain  opposition   to  the  French 
war,  65. 
struck  off  the  Privy  Council,  69. 


Fox,  C.  J.:   becomes  Foreign  Secre- 
tary in  1806,  79. 

dies  the  same  year,  80. 
Fox,  Henry  :   co-operation  with  Lord 

Bute,  16. 

George  III.  :   his  opposition  to  Party 
Government,  1-9,  52. 
his  opinion  of  Kingship,  4. 
political  corruption  under,  6,  7. 
opposed   to  peace   with   America, 

48-50. 
on  the  loss  of  America,  9,  52. 
Foreign  policy  under,  9. 
the  political  proscription  of  1762, 

2,  12,  13. 
opposition  to  Repeal  of  the  Stamp 

Act,  25,  48. 
his   relations   with    George    Gren- 
ville,  27,  29,  30. 
dislike    of    Chatham's     funeral 

honours,  33. 
unpopularity  in  1774,  38. 
admiration  for  the  Constitution, 

43.65. 
management  of  Parliament,  43. 
dislike   of   the   Liberal   Opposi- 
tion, 44. 
financial     dealings    with     Lord 
North,  46. 
his  opinion  of  his  own  time,  47. 
his  opinion  of  Fox,  48,  54. 
dislike  of  war,  48,  62,  64. 
mistrust  of  Lord  Chatham,  50. 
thoughts  of  abdication,  51. 
his  dislike  of  Lord  Shelburne,  53. 
indignation  against  Lord  North, 

57- 
wrecks  the  Indian  Bill  in  the  Lords, 

59- 
becomes  the  head  of  the  war  party 

against  France,  65. 
his  opposition  to  peace,  66,  67,  69. 
opposition  to  the  Catholic  claims, 

70. 
dissatisfaction  with  Pitt,  72. 
insists  on  pledges  against  Catholic 

relief,  73. 
his  refusal   to  suffer   Fox  in   the 

Government,  76. 
on  the  Royal  Veto,  82. 
his    triumph    over    the    Grenville 
Government,  83. 
opposition    to   abolition    of    the 

Slave  Trade,  83. 
later  popularity,  1 1 3. 
George  IV.  :  his  early  days,  42. 
as    Regent    retains    Perceval    as 

Minister,  92. 
mistrusted    by    Lords    Grey    and 

Grenville,  92. 
his  dislike  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  94. 


Index 


339 


George  IV.  :   his  violence  against  the 
Catholic  party,  95. 
great     dislike    of     Lord     Grey, 

94.  96. 
aversion  from  Canning,  101,  103. 
relations  with  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton, 105,  106. 
his  anger  with  the  seceders  from 

Canning's  Government,  108. 
improved  relations  with  Canning, 

109. 
his  visit  to  Ireland  in  1 82 1 ,  117. 
strong     line     against     Catholic 

Relief,  122. 
agitated  interview  with  Welling- 
ton, 125. 
fears  for  his  sanity,  127. 
Greville's  character  of  him,  118. 
Sir  Walter  Scott's  opinion  of,  1 19. 
his  Court  described,  130. 
Germany  :    naval  ambitions  in  1843, 
203. 
desire  for  colonies,  310. 
Gladstone,  W.  E.  :    his  wish  for  peace 
with  Russia  in  1855,  237. 
opposes    war    with    Germany    for 

Denmark,  277. 
becomes   leader   of   the    House  of 
Commons,  300. 
Prime  Minister  in  1868,  301. 
his  defeat  in  1874,  303. 

efforts  to  avert  war  with  Russia 
in  1878,  206. 
opposes  Lord  Beaconsfield's  policy, 

304- 
opposes  our  helping  Turkey,  305. 
opposes  the  Afghan  War  in  1878, 

306. 
wins  the  General  Election  of  1880, 

306. 
imprisons  Parnell,  309. 
tries  to  pacify  German  antagonism, 

312. 
receives  an  open  telegram  from  the 

Queen   at   fall  of   Khartoum, 

314- 
refuses  offer  of  an  earldom,  315. 
cold    parting   with    the   Queen    in 

1886,  317. 
his  fourth  administration,  318. 
resignation  in  March  1894,  318, 
Grafton,     Duke    of :      his    fears    of 
despotism,  36,  38. 
disgust  with  politics,  54. 
disbelief  in  the  necessity  of  the 
war  with  France,  64. 
Goderich,  Lord  :    his  short  ministry, 

no. 
Granville,  Lord  :  repents  of  his  share 
in  the  Crimean  War,  235. 
remonstrates     with      Delane      for 
Times  articles,  301,  316. 


Granville,  Lord  :  the  Queen's  lessened 

confidence  in,  302. 
Grenville,     George :     succeeds    Lord 
Bute  as  Minister  in  1763,  17. 
his  Government  passes  the  Stamp 
Act,  24. 
Ministry  dismissed  in  1765,  22. 
relations  with  the  King,  29. 
Grenville,   Lord  :    his  opposition   to 
peace  with  France,  68. 
in  favour  of  the  Catholic  claims,  73. 
becomes  Prime  Minister  in  1806,  79. 
reluctant   surrender   to   the   King, 

83- 
the  end  of  his  Ministry,  86. 
refuses  overtures  for  office  from  the 

Regent,  92. 
his  difference  with   Lord   Grey  on 
Frencli  policy,  99. 
Grey,  Lord  :   becomes  Prime  Minister 
in  1830,  135. 
his  defeat  on  Gascoigne's  motion, 

139- 
courts  the  bishops'  votes  for  the 

Reform  Bill,  143. 
correspondence  with  the  King,  134. 
offers  to  resign,  146. 
his  resignation  in  July  1834,  153. 

Leopold,     King     of    Belgium  :      his 

wish   to  revive   monarchy   in 

England,  175. 

letters  to   the  Queen,  his  niece, 

184. 

advises  her  to  favour  the  Church, 

184. 
his  fears  of  Napoleon,  199. 
wishes  for  a  closer  union  of  Belgium 
with  Germany,  200. 
Liverpool,     Lord :     becomes     Prime 
Minister  in  1812,  98. 
the  King's  dislike  of  him,  100,  101. 

Sumner  incident,  101. 
his  retirement  in  1827,  105. 

Markham,     Archbishop     of     York  : 

sermon  by,  37. 
Melbourne,    Lord  :     on    the   love   of 
English  kings  for  war,  152. 
becomes  Prime  Minister,  July  1834, 

153- 
refuses    to    give    pledges    against 

Church  legislation,  154. 
his  first  defeat  in  1839,  178. 
final  defeat  in  1841,  r8o. 
continued     influence    with     the 
Queen,  181,  182. 

North,   Lord :    becomes   Minister  in 
1770,43. 
his    pleasant    relations    with    the 
King,  45. 


34o 


Index 


North,  Lord  :  financial  relations  with 
the  King,  46. 
resignation  in  1782,  52. 

Palmerston,  Lord  :  his  dislike  of 
Prussia,  173. 

thought  mad  by  Stockmar,  173. 

Foreign  Secretary  from  1846- 
1851,  208-229. 

the  Queen's  irritation  with,  210- 
229. 

his  advice  to  Spain  severs  diplo- 
matic relations,  212. 

sends  guns  to  Sicilian  insurgents, 
217. 

differs  from  the  Queen  about 
Austria  and  Italy,  213,  216. 

humiliated  by  Queen's  letter  in 
1850,  221,  222. 

the  Kossuth  episode,  225,  226. 

his  sympathy  with  Napoleon's 
coup  d'ttat  leads  to  his  dis- 
missal, 227. 

becomes  Prime  Minister  in  1855, 

233- 

as  he  seemed  to  Disraeli,  234. 

hatred  for  him  in  Germany,  239. 

the  Macdonald  incident,  244,  245. 

defeated  on  Conspiracy  Bill  in 
1858,  247. 

recalled  to  power,  1859,  255. 

threatening  speech  about  Den- 
mark, 274. 

his  death  in  1865,  300. 
Parliament,  scenes  in,  177,  188. 
Peel,      Sir     Robert  :       opposed      to 
Catholic    Emancipation,    105, 
106. 

leaves  Canning's  Cabinet  in  1827, 
106. 

his  conversion  to  Catholic  eman- 
cipation, 124. 

difficult  interviews  with  the  King, 
126. 
Perceval :    rejoicings  at  his  murder, 

95- 
Pitt,     William  :      beginning     of    his 
Ministry,  59. 

opposed  to  the  French  war,  63. 

vain  attempts  at  peace  negotia- 
tions in  1796  and  in  1797,  67, 
68. 

assists  peace  negotiations  in  1801, 

7i- 
difference     with     King     on     the 

Catholic  question,  72. 
his  resignation,  72. 
his  wish  to  include  Fox  in  a  new 
Ministry,  75. 
death  in  1806,  78. 
Portland,     Duke     of :      the     King 
refuses  to  see  him,  57. 


Portland,  Duke  of :  head  of  the  Coali- 
tion Ministry,  56. 
joins  Pitt's  Cabinet  in  1794,  57. 
returns  to  power  in  1807,  86. 
Press,    the :     Peel    and    Wellington 

kow-tow  to  Barnes,  the  Times 

editor,  157. 
Times      letters      against     French 

officers,  196. 
Press  promotes  war  with  France 

in  1844,  197. 
Palmerston's    complaints    of    the 

Times,  221. 
Press  attacks  on  Prince  Albert,  230, 

244. 
the  Morning  Post  in  French  pay 

and  control,  230,  249. 
Times      opposes      Palmerston's 

Government,  234. 
Press  encourages  vain  hopes  from 

Russian  war,  236. 
violent      against      peace      with 

Russia,  241. 
Times  attacks  on  Prussia,  245,  246. 
Similar  attacks  on  France,  248. 
Press  campaign    against  Germany 

in  i860,  266. 
encourages    Denmark    to    expect 

English  help,  274. 
the  Times  attacks  Napoleon,  300. 

Press  persecutes  the  Queen,  302. 
Bribery  of  German  press   against 

England,     by     France      and 

Russia,  311. 
Lord  Granville  rebukes  the  Times 

for  lack  of  patriotism,  310,  316. 

Republican  feeling  in  England,   39, 

40,  136. 
Rockingham,  Lord  :  his  first  Ministry 
of  1765,  24. 
repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  24. 
Burke's  high  praise  of  his  Ministry, 

25. 
his  resignation  in  July  1766,  27. 

second  Ministry  in  1782,  53. 
ends  with  his  death  in  July  of  the 
same  year,  53. 
Rosebery,  Lord  :    succeeds  Mr.  Glad- 
stone in  1894,  318. 
his  signal  defeat  at  the  Election  of 
July  1895,  318. 
prediction  of  the  massacre  of  the 
Armenians  in  191 5,  321. 
Russell,  Lord  John  :    his  motion  for 
repeal  of  Test  and  Corporation 
Act,  123. 
visit  to  Berlin,  193. 
succeeds  to  Peel  in  1846,  197. 
offers  to  resign  in  1850,  220. 
refuses     to     sacrifice     Palmerston 
to  the  Queen,  224. 


Index 


34i 


Russell,  Lord  John:  his  resignation 
in  January  1855,  233. 
attends    the    Vienna    conference, 

235- 
carries  his  amendment   to   Derby 

Reform  Bill,  251. 
Foreign  Secretary  in  Palmerston's 

second  Ministry  in  1859,  255. 
his  Italian  policy,  257. 

differences     with     the     Queen, 

257-263. 
becomes   suspicious   of   Napoleon, 

261. 
his  view  of  our  duty  to  Denmark 

in  1864,  272. 
succeeds     Palmerston     as     Prime 

Minister  in  1865,  300. 
defeated  on  his  Reform  Bill,  301. 
Russia,    the   Crimean   War :     frenzy 

for  the  war,  174. 
wish  for  the  annihilation  of  Russia, 

231. 
the  idea  of  peace  scouted,  241. 
extravagant  war  aims  of  the  ex- 
tremists, 241. 
Conservative  discontent   with   the 

peace,  242. 
the     Sun     newspaper     goes    into 

mourning  for  the  peace,  241. 
its  proclamation  hissed  at  Temple 

Bar,  241. 
denounced   by   Lords   Derby   and 

Malmesbury,  242. 

Salisbury,  Lord  :    his  Ministry  ended 
in  1892,  318. 
return  to  power  in  1895,  3l&- 
the  troubles  of  his  time,  320-328. 
his      scepticism      about       pacifist 
democracies,  335. 
Shelburne,     Lord  :      succeeds     Lord 
Rockingham  in  July  1782,  53. 
the  King's  dislike  of  him,  53. 
his  defence  of  prerogative,  54. 
defeated  in  February  1783,  54. 
proposes  Pitt  as  his  successor,  61. 
his  opposition  to  the  French  war, 
65. 
Stockmar,    Baron:     a    "living    dic- 
tionary," 166. 
his  tutorship  of  Prince  Albert,  166. 
wish     for      an     Anglo  -  German 

alliance  against  Russia,  167. 
wish  to  strengthen  the  influence 

of  the  Crown,  168. 
theory  of  the  Crown's  place  in 

the  Constitution,  170. 
cosmopolitanism,  172. 
contempt    for    our    politicians, 
172,  194. 
made      sick      by      Parliamentary 
speeches,  172. 

23 


Stockmar,  Baron:   thinks  Palmerston 
mad,  173. 
his  mistrust  of  Napoleon  III.,  199. 
encourages  Prussia  to  war,  231. 
decorated  by  Napoleon,  200. 
his  strong  pro-Prussianism,  271. 

Tait,  Archbishop  :  withdraws  opposi- 
tion to  the  Irish  Church  Dis- 
establishment Bill,  187. 

Temple,  Lord  :  George  III.'s  letter  to, 

55- 
helps  the  King  to  wreck  the  India 

Bill  and   the   Government   in 

1783.58. 
for  three  days  is  Prime  Minister,  59. 

Victoria,     Queen :      reproaches     the 

King  of  Prussia,  167,  168. 
her  veneration  for  Charles  I.,  175. 
grief  at   Lord   Melbourne's  fall, 

178. 
political  neutrality,  179. 
the  bitterness  of  the  Tories  against 

her,  179. 
her  dislike  of  Peel,  180. 

joy  over  the  Gorham  judgment, 

185. 
submits  the  Irish  Church  question 

to  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, 187. 
her  religious  liberalism,  185,  191. 
promotes  the  entente  cordiale  with 

France,  196. 
her  mistrust  of  Napoleon,  199,  256, 

264,  267,  292. 
favours    a    closer    union    between 

Prussia  and  Belgium,  199. 
welcomes  Napoleon  at  Court,  201. 
deters    Napoleon    from    war    with 

Germany  in  1863,  204. 
averts     a     war      in     1867     about 

Luxemburg,  204. 
tries  to  mediate  between  Austria 

and  Prussia  in  1866,  205. 
appeals     to     Prussian     king     for 

magnanimity     to    France    in 

1870,  and  again  in  1873,  205. 
Bismarck's  jealousy  of  her,  205. 
tries     to     prevent     Russo-Turkish 

War  in  1877,  206. 
her  pro-Austrian  sympathies,  211, 

212. 
dislike  of  politics,  214. 
vain     attempt      to     shake     off 

Palmerston,  224. 
makes   Aberdeen   apologise   for   a 

speech,  233. 
her  dislike  of  Cobden  and  Bright, 

236. 
thinks    peace    with     Russia    pre- 
mature, 240. 


342 


Index 


Victoria,  Queen  :  inclined  to  fight  for 
Austria  against  France,  253. 
in     favour     of    Germany    against 

Denmark,  269. 
opposes  war  for  Denmark,  276. 
becomes  unpopular   for   so  doing, 

279. 
her  indignation  with  Palmerston, 
281. 
relation  to  the  Army,  284. 
tenacity  of  prerogative,  286. 
opposition  to  military  retrench- 
ment, 288. 
opposition   to  military  reforms, 

275. 
indifference  to  Irish  legislation, 
301. 
reluctantly        makes        Gladstone 

Premier  in  1880,  307. 
settles  the  County  franchise  dis- 
pute, 315. 
her  aversion  from  Home  Rule,  317. 
promotes  the  Conservative  and 
Liberal  Coalition  in  1886,  317. 
sees   the   beginning   of   the   South 

African  War,  327. 
her  funeral  momentarily  reunites 
the  Concert  of  Europe,  328. 

Wellington,     Duke     of :      his     diffi- 
culties with  George  IV.,  102. 
leaves  Canning's  Cabinet,  106. 
becomes  Prime  Minister  in  January 

1828,  no. 
obliged   to  yield  on  the  Catholic 

question,  124. 
his  battle  with  the  King,  127. 

violent   speech   against  Reform, 

135- 

the  fall  of  his  Ministry  in  Novem- 
ber 1830,  135. 
his  fears  for  the  Monarchy,  140. 


Wellington,    Duke    of :     thinks    the 
House  of  Commons  impossible, 
156. 
ready  to  lead  German  Army  against 
France  in  1840,  201. 
Wilkes  :  his  opinion  of  George  III.,  4. 
William  IV.  :    his  Gallophobia,  133, 
147. 
strange  speeches,  133,  142,  149. 
Greville's  account  of,  134. 
Duke   of   Wellington's   eulogy   of, 

134. 

his  dread  of  Reform,  136. 

opposition  to  the  Ballot,  137. 

Coronation  in  Sept.  1831,  141. 

objection  thereat  to  the  Episco- 
pal kiss,  141. 

irritation  with  bishops  for  their 
votes  against  Government, 
144,  145. 

Correspondence  with  Lord  Grey, 
146. 

failure  to  wreck  the  Reform  Bill, 
148. 
opposed  to  the  abolition  of  Slavery, 

151- 
favours    State    provision    of    Irish 

clergy,  152. 
dismisses  the  Melbourne  Ministry, 

154- 
obliged  to  recall  the  Whigs,  158. 
his  bad  relations  with  the  Whigs, 

161. 
Lord    Melbourne's    praise    of    the 

King,  163. 

York,  Duke  of :  his  anti-Catholic 
speech  printed  in  letters  of 
gold,  120,  121. 

the  scandal  about  the  sale  of  Army 
commissions,  121. 

his  great  popularity,  121. 


Printed  by  Morrison  &  Gibb  Limited,  Edinburgh 


-TBI 

Big. 
31  e 


THE  MONARCHY  IN  POLITICS 

The    Monarchy    in    Poll 
Farrer.      New    Y  irk:      I  • 

FROM  George  III.  to  Queen  Victoria, 
Mr.  Farrer  shows  by  means  of  State 
documents,  the  acts  of  statesmen, 
their  correspondence  with  their  sover- 
eigns, from  diaries,  biographies,  histories, 
and  from  many  collateral  sources,  the 
political  activities  of  those  four  I 
monarchs  in  relation  to  their  constitutional 
rignts  and  limitations.  From  King  John 
to  George  III.  the  Question  of  the  con- 
stitutional rights  of  British  monarchs 
had  been  more  or  less  a  manor  of  minis- 
terial and  parliamentary  concern,  evolving 
Into  the  party  government  of  the  Empire 
under  the  elder  Pitt  in  the  reign  of 
George  II.  With  the  accession  of 
George  III.  to  the  throne,  the  dominant 
power  of  Pitt  was  broken,  and  with  it 
the  predominance  of  party  government; 
King  George  believing,  as  Mr.  Farrer 
says.  that  the  "country  should  be  gov- 
erned by  his  personal  friends,  not  by 
Whigs  nor  Tories';  ministers  should  be  se- 
lected from  either  side,  so  that  the  Gov- 
ernment might  be  based  on  what  was 
called  'a  broad  bottom.'  " 

The  struggle  between  George  III. 
and  Pitt  on  ihe  constitutional  rights  of 
the  monarch  to  meddle  in  the  political 
machinery  of  the  Government  is  well 
known;  the  king  ultimately  triumphing. 
But  with  George  IV.,  a  weak  and 
pleasure-loving  king,  the  party  govern- 
ment built  up  by  the  elder  Pitt  was  re- 
established. William  IV.  tried  to  carry 
out  the  royal  prerogatives  in  political  af- 
fairs so  ably  exercised  by  George  IV.,  but 
the  long  reign  of  the  Regency  under  the 
Prince  of  Wales  and  his  accession  as  George 
IV.,  party  government  had  Become  too 
strongly  rooted  in  practice  for  William  IV., 
even  it'  he  had  boon  as  able  as  the  third 
Hanoverian  king,  to  exceed  his  constitu- 
tional rights.  So  his  short  reign  was  one 
long  struggle  with  his  ministers  whom  he 
disliked,  immensely;  they  bequeathed  the 
party  system  with  force  and  power  to  the 
next    reign. 

It  .'s    in    this    reign,    that   of    Queen    Vic- 
toria,  that   the  royal   participation  in   poli- 
tics  is   given    its   most   interesting    account. 
Quite  half  the  book  is  devoted  to  the  ques- 
tion as  it  affected  the  long  rule  of  Queen 
Victoria.     The    ueuen    under     the     t 
of    Baron    Stockmar,    had    been    stud 
trained    in    foreign    and    dottiest]  ■     . 
and  from  the  beginning  she  took  an  active 
part  In  the  government  of  the  empire, 
all  her  ministers  from  Palmerston  and  Lord 
John  Russell  to  Gladstone,  and  with  1 
excepted,  she  was  more  or  less   in  conflict 
over    policies     When    her    own    views    were 
not    carried     out.       Palmerston     and     Lord 
John  Russell,  though  they  made  a  show  of 
insisting    upon    their    constitutional    rights 
to    govern    without    interference    from    the 
sovereign.     1n»nt     t«    v. —    _sn     • 

'        -'- 


si 
m 
hi 

Ti 

1! 
ti 
k' 

I 


, ^  .jv-i-    *v-iTi    in    many    im- 

^orteS^ueationB,  notably  the  Dano-Ger- 
man auarrel  over  Schleswig^Holstem,  in 
Tt      liations      towards       Napoleon       HI. 

and    the    I  "fan    revolution.      The    foreign 

policy  of  England  during  the  early  year, 
'S  her   reign   was   largely    directed    by    the 

dominating  influence  of  the .queen-      GtoJ 

I  -tone     it    had    often    been    said,    was    least 

1  like" bv  the  queen  of  all  her  minister. .and 

was  because  he  not  only  sought  but  did 

LTt   her   Politi-l   influence ,    up  on   h  „  £ 

w^^'pSictlcSrd^his  imperialistic 
nohcv  the  growth  and  triumph  of  which. 
S?J2k  the  empire  so  rich  and  powerful, 
as  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  char- 
!M  and  wisdom  of  the  queen  in  winning 
JoTnert  grateful  and  affectionate  memory 

*  th6d  hSr  end  oY^r  lotg  r5£  STi 
ITarcl  mat  l^ve  political  influence  in 
,-STSSrSSit  and  yet  not  abuse  consti- 1 

|  tutional  rights.  remarks  that, 

In   conclusion,   Mr.    fa.rti    ic 

•    i  „*  mir  history  its  marked  oy  a 
"No  period  of  om    nistiny  British 

more    marvellous    extension-  of    the   Bntisn 
'dondnions  and  of  national  prospen  y  than 
tZ  we  have  traversed  from  1  .Wto  190*> 
*  «T*  cnme  r»priod  'ends  no  support  to  the 
yet  the  same  p  no  consututional   sys- 

C°mmv°^   worked    with    invariable     smooth- 
n-h^StL  hasten  shown  to  have 

twn  its  constant  feature.  .  .  •  ^ 
been      us  whilst   reducing   the    ap- 

actual  veto  has  passed  into  disuse,  the  veto 
actual  \c  .  a  more  serious  war? 

^"^ainst  any  leSsla^on  distasteful  to 
\Z  Cown  Mr.  icky's  statement  that 
En^h  sovereignty  is  so  restricted  in  its 
nrrTv ince  that  it  has,  or  ought  to  have,  no 
ST influent  on  legislation,  is  hardly  borne 

IT  and  S?Victorra!  For  without  any 
formal  prohibition  the  whole  weight  of  the 
Si  influence  of  the  Crown  may  so  easily 
be  thrown  into  the  scale  against  any  par- 
ticular  measure  as  to  nake  both  its  m  re- 
duction difficult  and  Its  passing  impossible. 
Where  every  speech  of  leading  statesmen 
%  closely  scanned,  and  a] r  con- 
demned as  has  natu rail y  al  !  'P«med 
•omendons  pressure   >B  'brought   to  hear 

lP°w  ,    the  known 

aspire"  hy  an  i> 

which  is  rare,  in  human  nature. 

Edward  S.  ParroWs  "dictionary  of  Mili- 
tary Terms"  will  be  issued  at  once  by  J .  B. 
U  fpincott  Company  in  a  new  edition  which 
will  include  all  the  latest  war  words. 


OV| 

■ 
1 


l  »pa  '1,i  >  -""Mi"*' 


v       T>~ 


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